Naledi Theatre Awards: The Market Theatre Foundation celebrates over 40 nominations

Naledi Theatre Awards: The Market Theatre Foundation celebrates over 40 nominations

The Market Theatre Foundation proudly announces that work presented across its stages in 2025 have bagged 42 nominations across several categories at the 21st Naledi Theatre Awards. This achievement, announced in the 50th year of The Market Theatre, reaffirms the institution’s leadership in theatrical excellence, relevant programming and world‑class talent.

 

Renowned playwright Mike van Graan’s The Good White is nominated for Best New South African Script, alongside Modise Sekgothe’s Gabo Legwala and Neil Coppen/Mpume Mthombeni’s The Last Country.

The Good White’s Shonisani Masutha also earns nominations for Best Supporting Performance in a Play and Best Breakthrough Performance in a Play.

Audience favourite, Afropocalypse, originally devised by Daniel Buckland in collaboration with The Market Theatre Laboratory’s second‑year students, makes a striking professional debut with six nominations including Best Director, Best Cutting‑Edge Production, Best Ensemble, Best Breakthrough Performance in a Play, Best Costume Design and Best Choreography/Movement Direction.

Collectively, ensemble works seen at The Market Theatre – Afropocalypse, Life and Times of Michael K, The Fall and Fatherhood – have claimed four spots in the Best Ensemble category.

Furthermore, The Market Theatre Kippies Fringe, curated through a unique partnership with The Art Cave, makes a notable appearance in the fringe theatre category, securing two of the five nominations under Best Fringe Production and two under Best Performance in a Fringe Theatre Production. Lesedi Thuto Gaasenwe’s Sentebale, produced through the Barney Simon Residency at The Market Theatre Laboratory, is in the running for the same award as well.

In performance categories, Gontse Ntshegang (Breakfast with Mugabe) and Mpume Mthombeni (The Last Country) compete for Best Lead Performance in a Play: Female, while Modise Sekgothe (Gabo Legwala) and Themba Ndaba (Breakfast with Mugabe) gun for the same honour in the male category.

Albert Khoza (The Black Circus of the Republic of Bantu) and Bo Petersen (Pieces of Me) are nominated for Best Performance in a Solo Production.

The Market Theatre Foundation also maintains a strong presence in the directing category, with four of six nominations coming from work presented at The Market Theatre: Calvin Ratladi (Breakfast with Mugabe), Neil Coppen (The Last Country), Lara Foot (Life and Times of Michael K) and Daniel Buckland (Afropocalypse).

The full list of nominations associated with The Market Theatre Foundation can be found at www.naleditheatreawards.com.

ENDS

The Market Theatre Foundation is an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

 For reduced price block bookings (of 10 or more) and school groups, contact Anthony Ezeoke (Audience Development) at AnthonyE@markettheatre.co.za or 083 246 4950.

For media enquiries, contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at the Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.

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Lives, Voices, Struggle: An Exhibition of Human Rights in a Divided World

Lives, Voices, Struggle: An Exhibition of Human Rights in a Divided World

The Market Photo Workshop (MPW) is thrilled to present “Lives, Voices, Struggle”, a group exhibition from MPW’s archives celebrating Human Rights Month and honouring photographers whose work reminds us of the ongoing responsibility to uphold and protect the rights of all people.

The exhibition opens on Saturday, 7 March 2026 from 11h00 – 14h00 at The Photo Workshop Gallery and Gallery 1989 in Newtown with a conversation between Andrew Tshabangu and Professor Thembinkosi Goniwe.  

Curated by Bandile Gumbi and Loyiso Oldjohn, the exhibition covers vast ground, zooming into land, migration, women, LGBTQIA+ rights as well as youth development. From homes to workplaces, women, LGBTQI+ people, persons with disabilities and other marginalised communities negotiate power and possibility in daily life. Their stories reflect courage, vulnerability and collective strength.

At the heart of the exhibition is a call for human rights to not just be spoken about during moments of crisis, protest or violation, as they are lived most fully in ordinary, everyday life. Across South Africa, people navigate work, family, faith, friendship, care and community under complex social and economic conditions. It is in these daily practices that dignity, equality, resilience and belonging are continually negotiated.

For that reason, “Lives, Voices, Struggle” explores human rights not only as legal guarantees, but as lived experiences shaped by imagination, memory, culture and struggle.

Bandile Gumbi, Head of The Market Photo Workshop, emphasises the role of photography and visual storytelling in advocating for a just society centred around human rights. “The Market Photo Workshop,” she states, “is a communal hub for the photography community. This exhibition affirms photography’s power to honour dignity, amplify voices, and deepen our shared responsibility to one another. Through personal stories, photographs, multimedia and community knowledge, the exhibition reveals how Africans live, contest and remake human rights in both ordinary and extraordinary ways. Activism and resistance are presented with context, care and humanity.”

As South Africa marks 50 years since the tragedy of June 16, 1976, the exhibition foregrounds how young people actively imagine and build their futures amid inequality, digital transformation and global uncertainty—in the process posing questions about the promise of a better life for all. Again, it highlights informal economies and everyday livelihoods that sustain households and communities.

Amid raging debate about immigrants, this exhibition also presents movement as central in shaping life in Southern Africa. People move for various reasons, within and across borders. Therefore, here migration is presented as a human experience rather than a crisis narrative.

Finally, the exhibition explores land as more than territory: as memory, livelihood, identity and responsibility through stories of stewardship, struggle and adaptation, reminding us that environmental justice is inseparable from human dignity.

Greg Homann, Artistic Director of The Market Theatre Foundation, echoes the significance of this group exhibition, as it falls within the crucial 50th year of The Market Theatre. “This exhibition is timed to provoke sobering reflections about human rights in a world where there seemingly appears to be an attempt to revoke hard won rights. Here, photography can be revisited as a powerful tool for storytelling and remembering. For a large part of The Market Theatre’s history, The Market Photo Workshop has complemented its fearless theatrical programming with its own bold curation aimed at equally confronting injustices and telling ordinary people’s stories.”

Join the conversation with Andrew Tshabangu and Professor Thembinkosi Goniwe at the opening of  “Lives, Voices, Struggle” on Saturday, 7 March 2026 from 11h00 – 14h00 at The Photo Workshop Gallery and Gallery 1989 in Newtown, or visit the exhibition daily (Monday to Friday) from 7 March until 14 March 2026. 

ENDS

The Market Photo Workshop is a Division of The Market Theatre Foundation, an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.

For more information, please contact Bekie Ntini (Manager: Training and Public Engagement Programming) at bekien@marketphotoworkshop.co.za or 011 834 1444.

For media enquiries, please contact Bongiwe Potelwa (Publicist at The Market Theatre Foundation) at bongiwep@markettheatre.co.za or (011) 832 1641.