A flair for the dramatic

“It reads almost like a novel. It’s autobiographical,” said Taub of Let Us Be Actors, the latest in her series of textbooks for teachers and pupils of the theatre.

Taub has been involved in theatre since she was three years old, when her mother took her for dancing lessons. A lifetime later, she has taught drama in a number of schools, including the National School of the Arts (then the School of Art, Ballet and Music) where she started the first-ever matric drama programme. She has brought the joys of theatre to nursery school children as a member of the Playmakers group and has headed up her own children’s theatre programme.

For the last three decades of this varied career, Taub has shared her accumulated expertise through a series of chatty textbooks and guides that cover everything from the history of theatre to elocution, theatre games and poetry. Her first textbook, Starting Points was the only drama textbook available to teachers and pupils at the time. Ever since, Taub has self-published, and her scope has extended beyond the classroom.

Team Building Exercises and Drama/Theatre Games presents physical and dramatic exercises to help spark teachers’ and pupils’ imaginations, but is equally useful for corporate team building activities. The Voice Makeover provides elocution training and exercises for any age, and Let Us Be Actors is designed to be read first as a novel, before pupils are guided through it in search of their own dramatic ‘it’ factor.

The prolific Taub has even produced a children’s story set in the local landscape of Louis Botha Avenue, a collection of true ‘episodes’ written by her students and intended for use in dramatic monologues, and a colourful book of poetry for the primary school classroom.

In fact, this dynamic grandmother of three expresses her journey through the world of theatre best herself: “It’s out of the box, all the time.”

Details: c.taub@absamail.co.za; 082 572 0467.