Bianca Amato’s journey to become a queen of theatre

Bianca Amato walked away from Broadway, turned down a steady stream of American screen work, and left behind a career many would still be trying to break into. She came home. Not because the work had dried up. On the contrary, she came back to South Africa to raise a family, and to do the kind of work she wanted to do.

Amato spent 15 years in the United States after leaving South Africa in 2002. She returned about eight years ago. “I left South Africa just after 9/11,” she said. “And I had an extraordinary time.”

During those years, she performed in The Coast of Utopia and Macbeth on Broadway, and featured in Arcadia, Neva, The Broken Heart, Private Lives, and King Lear. She worked with respected directors and actors across New York and regional stages.

Her screen credits include a guest appearance on Sex and the City and a lead in Powers on the PlayStation Network. In addition to theatre and television, she voiced more than forty audiobooks, including Philippa Gregory’s historical novels and Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, which reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list.

‘I was on Broadway a few times’

“I did a lot, a lot of theatre in New York and regionally around the United States,” she said. “Also, I was on Broadway a few times. I worked with amazing people.”

She chose to leave that all behind. “I left New York at a point where my career was really buzzing. I made a choice to come home. It was the right choice for me, it was a strong choice and I’m happy to be here, all the more so now,” she said. 

“I wanted to have a baby and for my husband and I it felt really, really appropriate to be back home in South Africa with our family and with support and the community that we have here.”

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Before her international career, Amato was already a familiar face in South Africa. From 1998 to 2001, she played Philippa De Villiers in Isidingo, then one of the country’s most watched shows. Her character’s relationship with mine manager Derek Nyathi, played by Hlomla Dandala, marked the first interracial romance portrayed on South African television.

“It was wonderful to be part of the slow but healthy process that changed people’s attitudes,” she said at the time. The role earned her an Avante Award for best actress.

‘I put on my big girl pants’

Returning to South Africa meant reassessing what kind of roles were available locally.

“It has been a challenge to find the kind of work that I was able to do over there here,” she said. “So, I have had to put on my big girl pants and say, ‘right, let’s create that work then’.”

That decision led to the founding of The Quickening Theatre Company with Ken Siewe Chabalala, Charlotte Butler and Paige Bonnen.

“Our objective is to bring really entertaining and beautifully penned and excellently crafted theatre to the South African audiences,” she said. “We are very excited about the projects that we’re going to do and the projects we are doing at the moment.”

Part of her focus now is on rebuilding a strong theatre audience.

“What we haven’t done in South Africa for a long time is to keep cultivating an audience who appreciates things that may ask a little bit more of you as an audience, that’s not completely escapist,” she said. “But there are so many gorgeous and funny and delicious and interesting and thought-provoking plays out there.”

Nothing like really good theatre

She said that live performance stands out from other forms of entertainment.

“When you put on a show on Netflix, you’re aiming for something that’s going to transport you and entertain you. The same can be said for a really good piece of theatre. It’s just that it’s old-fashioned in that it’s live, right there in front of you.”

She added that there is a strong case to be made for this.

“I wonder now, given that AI is everywhere, whether or not we’re going to start hungering for the fact that we’ll know that the person in front of us actually is flesh and blood,” she said.

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