| | Barney Simon (Artistic Director), Mannie Manim (Business Director) and a group of (white) actors founded the Market Theatre of Johannesburg. The building opened in 1976, the year of the Soweto Uprisings. Simon had worked as a stagehand in Joan Littlewood's 'Theatre Workshop' in the 1950s and was influenced by her to create a theatre of struggle. He had also lived in America in the 1960s where he had come into contact with Grotowski and Joseph Chaikin. In 1972 the actress Yvonne Bryceland, her husband Brian Astbury and the playwright Athol Fugard had set up the multiracial Space Theatre in Cape Town, a precedent for the Market. |
