Popular festival returns

KZN’s premier arts festival: the 22nd annual Witness Hilton Arts Festival will once again take place at Hilton College in the KZN Midlands from 18 – 21 September, 2014. This year the four-day festival boasts a magnificent array of the country’s foremost performing and visual-arts in a well-appointed festival atmosphere.

The festival invites the crème-de-la-crème of what is hot and happening in the creative industries in South Africa: theatre; dance; comedy; musical theatre; family theatre; classical music; music as well as a series of mind-scape lectures and discussions. There is a special emphasis on visual arts this year with extended exhibition space and elevated focus being given to crafters and art makers.

There is a bumper Jongosi schools arts festival embedded in the main festival, for high schools and primary schools to have a tailor-made package ahead of the main event, which takes place over two days Thursday 18 September for primary schools and Friday 19 September for high schools.The theatre line up is extensive and exciting again this year – with the festival team securing the most praiseworthy productions from around the country. The full line up can be found on the Hilton website shortly. The Flagship Production this year is Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks – Richard Alfieri’s poignant and touching human comedy about two lives who come together through dance. Directed by Greg Homann, it features Judy Ditchfield and Jose Domingos. Tim Plewman presents two productions: The Last Moustache starring the last remaining Hitler double, Hiener Schmidt, a hapless (once famous … sort of) actor forced at gunpoint to become the Nazi Fuhrer; and Designer Genes XXL – Plewman’s designer comedy which carries the gender debate further than his famous Defending the Caveman did.

Highlights from the PANSA Musho! Festival have a strong presence at Hilton this year: the musical comedy revue, Dear Breeder, directed by Ewok Robinson, it is written and performed by Karen Logan and Kasia Vosloo. Giving Birth to my Father is written and directed by Wiseman Mncube featuring Lihle Dhlomo in a career-defining role as a woman who finds herself on the brink of freedom after eighteen years behind bars for the murder of her father. Daniel Buckland performs in The God Complex – a one-hander using comedy and visual theatre which showcases his physical prowess. The Shoe Man won the 2014 Musho! Audience Award, it is an audience-pleasing, life affirming one hander by Samson Mlambo and performed by Mapansela Reginald Hoffman.

From closer to home: Christopher Durang’s Laughing Wild, stars Lisa Bobbert and Darren King, as the zany people who could not be more different from each other than a can of tuna and the Vatican; The Ranga is a new one-man comedy written and performed by Aaron McIlroy and directed by Steven Stead, with Andy Turrell on musical accompaniment which is a tongue and cheek look at prejudice as seen through the eyes of a man tormented with pigmentation issues and The Replacements – written and directed by John van de Ruit, featuring Lisa Bobbert, Anthony Stonier and Evan Roberts. For the full programme go to www.hiltonfestival.co.za.

All enquiries on 033 383 0126 /7 or theatre@hiltoncollege.com.