×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Zim playwright shines in the US

News
A PLAY written by United States-based playwright, Tsungayi Hatitye, has been selected as part of 10 dramas in the Saving Endangered Species Int’l Playwriting Competition out of 200 plays from 19 countries.

A PLAY written by United States-based playwright, Tsungayi Hatitye, has been selected as part of 10 dramas in the Saving Endangered Species Int’l Playwriting Competition out of 200 plays from 19 countries.

NIGEL PFUNDE

Tsungayi Hatitye
Tsungayi Hatitye

The play, Tsetse Valley, will be performed at The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in Los Angeles, California, on April 4.

The 99-seater Odyssey is Los Angeles’ oldest theatre complex, and is internationally recognised as LA’s most innovation-oriented theatre and presenter of international work.

Set in Zimbabwe, Tsetse Valley will be used as a benefit performance for The Jane Goodall Institute, which is a non-profit organisation founded in 1977 by renowned primatologist and conservationist of the same name.

Hatitye told NewsDay he used his experience as a game ranger to write the 10-minute play about an endangered species.

“The species are an integral part of the plot with a view to astonish the audience with the magnificence of the species and take them on an adventure and make them laugh, cry and motivate them to save the species,” the Glen Norah-bred playwright said. “In essence, my story explores an old and new world living in parallel, trying to co-exist and the results that emerge from that contact.”

He said he wanted to provoke dialogue about survival.

A longer version of the play has been invited to another festival to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, next month and also to the African Youth Theatre and Dance Festival to be held in the same city in June .

Hatitye is a beneficiary of training at the Almasi Trust, a theatre training platform co-founded by US-based Danai Gurira and Patience Tawengwa.

He trained as a game ranger and attended Marondera High School.