About

Greg Homann is a multi-award winning South African-born theatre director, playwright, dramaturg, and academic living in Birmingham. His practice is led by a playful pursuit of innovative forms, drawing on postmodern dramaturgies together with cutting edge styles to create accessible and thought-provoking theatre. A particular interest for him is comedy and in work that thematically deals with identity politics, prejudice, and the lived experiences of the LGBTQI+ community.

For over 15 years he worked in South Africa where he was associated with some of the most successful, hard-hitting and critically acclaimed work staged in that country in its recent past. He is a world expert on post-apartheid plays. He has edited a collection of contemporary South African plays and co-edited two books on contemporary drama, theatre, and performance. He worked in The Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg for over 10 years during which time he headed up the writing and directing programmes and taught courses in theatre history, directing, acting, comedy in performance, and playwriting. He also spent two years at AFDA Johannesburg as the Head of School of Live Performance. He has lectured broadly on topics that include post-colonialism, theatre history, and identity studies.

He has been extensively engaged in the delivery of outreach and community engagement programmes in school halls, community centres, and as Resident Dramaturg of The South African State Theatre. For three years he was part of the Artistic Committee of the National Arts Festival.

The theatre productions Greg has directed and/or written have been nominated for over forty awards, winning twelve Naledi Theatre Awards including Best New Play and two for Best Cutting-Edge Production. In 2014 he was the recipient of South Africa’s highest accolade for theatre - the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award.

He has been lauded for his dramaturgy and directing of productions of new work, having directed eleven premieres – six of them new South African plays. His playful and cheeky takes on world-classics are also a key feature of his portfolio.

In the USA he has served as dramaturg on Syracuse Stage’s 2021 production of Athol Fugard’s ‘MASTER HAROLD’…AND THE BOYS and is currently working with San Jose Stage on the world-premiere of L. Peter Callender’s STRANGE COURTESIES which will be staged in early-2023.

His most recent work is a new version of Eugène Ionesco’s play, THE LESSON, based on a translation by Donald Watson, which he adapted and directed under commission from The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. That work highlights the complexity of a colonial education system in a contemporary African setting.

Greg’s work in the UK includes directing HUMANS AT WORK at the Warwick Arts Centre, WHEN SWALLOWS CRY at the RADA Festival 2019, and creating IN OUR SKIN under commission as Associate Artist at the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC) which used verbatim text and new music to depict the lives of gay men living in Birmingham and Johannesburg. In December 2022 he will direct a new play by Dan Scott called VERSTÄNDNIS (UNDERSTANDING) funded by Arts Council England that explores national identity and the state of being ‘in-between’.

www.greghomann.com

Qualifications

• MA in Text and Performance Studies with distinction. King’s College London and The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
• BA Dramatic Art (Hons equivalent). University of the Witwatersrand.

Tertiary Institutions he has Worked/Lectured at

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

The Wits School of Arts (University of the Witwatersrand)

Tisch School of Arts (New York University)

University of Pretoria

University of Johannesburg

AFDA School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance

The Market Theatre Lab

Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Teaching Areas

• Directing
• Playwriting
• Comedy in Performance
• Acting (Stanislavski, Meisner, The Method, and Adler)
• Improvisation
• Theatre-making
• Text & Performance Studies
• Verbatim Theatre
• South African Theatre History (1959 to the present)

Research Interests

• Intercultural theatre practices
• Contemporary South African theatre
• Post-Apartheid plays
• Post-colonial Theatre
• Identity Studies

Publications

Book Publications

▪ The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre (Co-editor) Methuen Drama, London. 2015. A comprehensive survey of South African playwriting and theatre-making by multiple contributors with a weighting towards work from approximately 1990 to 2014.

▪ New Territories: Theatre, Drama, & Performance in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Co-editor) Peter Lang, Brussels. 2015. A collection of analytical and comparative essays and interviews by multiple contributors on contemporary South African theatre and drama.

▪ At This Stage: Plays from Post-Apartheid South Africa (Editor) Wits Press, Johannesburg. 2009. Four South African plays by Mike van Graan, Motshabi Tyelele, Lara Foot & Craig Higginson.

 

Selected Chapter Publications

▪ On Black & White: Staging South African Identities after Apartheid in New Stage Idioms: South African Drama, Theatre & Performance in the 21^st Century. Brill’s Cross/Cultures, Netherlands. 2020.

▪ Emerging Playwrights and Significant Plays in The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. Methuen Drama, London. 2015.

▪ New Territories: Exploring the Post-Apartheid Stage in New Territories: Theatre, Drama, & Performance in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Peter Lang, Brussels. 2015.

▪ Claiming Western Texts for Contemporary South African Theatre: Issues of Relevance and the Dead-end Pursuit of National Identity in New Territories: Theatre, Drama, & Performance in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Peter Lang, Brussels. 2015.

 

Journal Publications

▪ ACADEMIC REVIEW ‘If That Small Sparke Could Yield So Great a Fire’: Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia and Eugenie Freed’s A Several Plot in Shakespeare in Southern Africa. 2019.

▪ ACADEMIC BOOK REVIEW - The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure by Sarah Grochala in The South African Theatre Journal (SATJ). Taylor & Francis. 2017.

▪ ESSAY Landscape & Body in The South African Theatre Journal (SATJ). 2009.