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Theatre Arts
Andi Colombo is the recipient of the Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary for 2024 and as her award, she has selected to direct her very latest, hot off the press, script 32 LAVENDER CLOSE.
As a 2017 UCT Honours graduate, Andi has worked almost non-stop over the last seven years exploring almost every facet of theatre-making, from acting, directing and writing, to being a sought-after production and stage manager, and an innovative lighting designer. As a lighting designer she has worked most recently on Philip Rademeyer’s award-winning Goed wat Wag om te Gebeur and My Kroon se Krank directed by Tinarie van Wyk-Loots.
While she is not new to directing, this bursary has provided a range of new and important experiences for Andi. As a maker, she’s always self-funded the creation of her shows, working other jobs to fund her newest works, rehearsing in lounges and bedrooms and outdoor spaces, and getting by with a little help from talented friends, generous theatre spaces, and some really tight budgeting. The Theatre Arts Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary will be the first time Andi has had the luxury of working in a rehearsal space for her own theatre work, and the first time she’s been funded to create her own show. This is a pivotal opportunity for her, and she’s revelling in the joy of having the space and time to really focus on the task at hand: making a play. She is not alone in this task. Her team includes set designer Ntobeko Ximba, co-sound designer Kanya Viljoen, and a cast comprising two wonderful upcoming performers, Grace Matetoa and Christie van Niekerk.
32 LAVENDER CLOSE aims to centre the experiences of young women, and to explore the softness, the intimacy, the growth that women experience when they live with other women. It considers how we open up to each other and create safe space, and how that allows us to thrive, and find ourselves, and ask the questions we are afraid to ask. The piece is set entirely in a bathroom and corridor of an old flat in Cape Town, highlighting the vulnerability of the piece. For many women, the bathroom is the place we undress, not just physically, but also emotionally. The bathroom is the place we connect over lipsticks, share tampons and life advice, shower drunk friends and hold back their hair while they vomit, and do our nails over the sink. In the bathroom of 32 Lavender Close, Melo and Carly make sense of themselves and each other. This work explores the ways we grow to understand ourselves, and documents a time of uncertainty around our finances, our sexuality, our life paths, our own bodies. This work says: there is a place for you here, at 32 Lavender Close. You belong here, between toothbrushes and towels that don’t match. You will always have a place.
32 LAVENDER CLOSE will run from the 5 - 9 June at Theatre Arts, Methodist Church Hall, cnr Milton Road and Wesley Street, Observatory. Tickets are R120. All bookings can be made on www.theatrearts.co.za and you can follow the show at @submarineproductions and @theatrearts.obs