Call for applications: Cabaret and Beyond Festival mentorship programme in SA

After the three month programme, CCA will select some of the works for the CAB Festival showcase. Applicants must provide reference materials demonstrating their ability to write or compose for musical theatre, meaning they understand songwriting within a dramatic framework.

Interested applicants should apply here before 14 August and participants will be announced on 22 August. Any specific questions should be emailed to CAB Festival project manager Roland Perold via rperold@gmail.com.

Successful applicants will:

• Attend bi-monthly Zoom sessions from 4 September to 11 December on Sunday mornings at 10am and be prepared to share their songs in development during these sessions.
• Receive peer feedback as well as professional insights from the panel during the Zoom sessions.
• Participate in a three-month writing collective that runs online and is facilitated by Perold.
• Write two songs, one of which must be an up-tempo number from a piece of musical theatre they wish to develop or are developing. This can be the beginning of a book musical or a collection of works linked to a strong theme or central idea.

Participants selected for the CAB Festival will receive a stipend of R3 500 for writing two songs that the CCA has the option of staging during the 2023 CAB Festival Showcase. Composers may write for up to a maximum of four voices. The showcase will be performed by two men, two women and a live pianist. An independent panel will adjudicate the songs presented at the showcase, and a 2023 winner will be announced.

During the previous programme, two composers were chosen to receive grants for further development with dramaturgical support from Janice Honeyman. Their subsequent chamber musicals received a professional staging in Durban and Gqebera in March 2022, an opportunity never before afforded local emerging musical theatre writers.

This year, specialised guidance will be provided by Johannesburg-based director Lesedi Job and Cape Town-based producer and composer Jaco Griessel. During the online mentoring sessions, Job will provide dramaturgical insights as the participants share their works in development. Job is a respected theatre maker with a keen interest in musical theatre and winner of the Naledi Theatre Award for her direction of When Swallows Cry. Griessel was a Mandela-Rhodes scholar for composition and is actively involved in promoting chamber musicals in South Africa. Griessel devised and implemented a tertiary-level musical theatre writing course for LAMTA Academy in Camps Bay, the first of its kind in South Africa.

“Positive audience reaction and excellent attendance bode well for the future of new writing in the genre,” Perold said. “There’s real momentum with this project which sparked rumblings across the country with its high-quality intimate productions. Audiences have taken notice.”

CCA director Ismail Mahomed described the CAB Festival as a support mechanism for creatives who need room to test their skills and grow together. “The arts need support and guidance, but ultimately we also want to create avenues that help writers and composers to work in a self-sustaining way and add to the theatrical landscape by telling their own stories.”

View the original call here.