Matthew Krouse
Children’s theatre producer Joyce Levinsohn is the fourth individual to win the coveted Arts & Culture Trust Lifetime Achievement Award.
Levinsohn, who began her career in London in the mid-1950s, has noted that she graduated from the Royal Academy of Dancing in the year that “coincided with the iniquitous Bantu education laws that created an inferior system of education for South Africans of colour”.
In the early years of her career Levinsohn brought acting students together with teachers from Soweto to develop educational theatre around the schools curriculum, and began adapting universally loved fairy tales for an African context.
“As I watched the process unfolding and saw two groups of children from such diametrically opposite environments sharing the common ground of arts and culture, I knew that my life’s mission was literally staring me in the face; and from that moment onwards I have dedicated myself to using theatre as a means of educating and entertaining children from all walks of life.”
From 1954 to 1961 Levinsohn was co-director of the Zinman-Green Speech and Drama Studio; from 1961 to 1975 she was director of the Sandton Speech and Drama Centre; and in 1976 she established the company Children’s Theatre Productions that “provided young, inexperienced talents with a chance to perform alongside seasoned professionals”.
In the mid-1980s she began to develop the idea of drawing on African mystical tales as a vehicle for promoting the idea of environmental conservation. This led to the groundbreaking production Songs and Tales from Africa. The production travelled to the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Maurtius, and in 1990 it was recorded by the American educational TV network Channel One.
In 1990 Levinsohn became the executive director of the Johannesburg Youth Theatre Trust, which works in the areas of interactive theatre-in-education, multilingual eco-musicals, family-oriented entertainment, childrens’ theatre workshops and performances of high schools’ setworks.
“Over the years I have revelled in the joy of watching young people grow confident enough to express their emotions, hopes, fears and aspirations,” says Levinsohn.
“I have taken immense pleasure in expanding the intellectual horizons of both children and adults. On occasions I have even experienced the thrill of being invited to join my young explorers on their flights of imagination. Above all, I have been profoundly enriched by the sense of self-fulfilment that comes with the knowledge that I have made a difference.”
Today the Johannesburg Youth Theatre Trust functions from its Junction Avenue venue in Parktown. Its most recent productions have been Little Bear, an animal tale designed to educate children, parents and teachers about sexual abuse, and a teen-oriented HIV and drug- awareness play called Picture This.
The Arts & Culture Trust has now recognised the contribution of Levinsohn, who has dedicated her life to the children of Johannesburg.
Other luminaries who have received the Lifetime Achievement Award include the late theatre critic Percy Baneshik and theatre director Gibson Kente, who won jointly in 1998, and writer Es’kia Mphahlele who won in 1999.