Mthimkhulu Kleinmond Kleine Kunstefees

My Fellow South Africans is a satirical take on contemporary South Africa and winner of the Toyota US Woordfees 2023 “Best Achievement: Solo” category, Best Solo Winner in the Independent Theatre Awards and Bronze Ovation Award winner at the National Arts Festival 2024.

As part of his year-long Artist-in-Residency programme at the University of Johannesburg in 2023, playwright Mike van Graan created My Fellow South Africans, a multi-sketch satirical revue in the tradition of his award-winning works Pay Back the Curry and State Fracture. It has always been the plan to tour this one-person revue to contribute to the themes that shaped the 2024 elections, with the ambition to perform the work in non-conventional spaces, including community halls, corporate boardrooms, retirement villages and people’s homes!

Having premiered at Artscape in May 2023 where it initially had a three-week run, the season for My Fellow South Africans was extended by four weeks after the last week of the premiere season sold out. By the end of the National Arts Festival in June 2024, it had been staged 137 times!

The talented Kim Blanche Adonis performs this solo piece that combines comedy, singing, poetry and drama through sixty-five minutes of high energy and focus, and has earned much critical and audience praise for her talent, technical skills and commitment.

Building on the direction of some of the sketches by Rob van Vuuren and Daniel Richards in previous incarnations, Van Graan also directs this revue that includes older, adapted and new sketches. This expands his creative involvement in the project and adds this to the producing and marketing roles that he generally plays in getting his works to the stage.

My Fellow South Africans has resonated with audiences across the board, touching on nerves with which many in our country can identify. Academics and NGO leaders, teachers and corporate CEOs, students and retirees — all have praised the work as tapping into our current anxieties and frustrations while allowing us a moment of catharsis and hope.

Here’s what some have said about My Fellow South Africans

So clever and entertaining as well as educational, funny, profound, real. Best hour spent in an intimate setting. Not to be missed.

— Laurence Esteve, co-director of the Zip Zap Circus

Political satire at its best. Brilliant script and exceptional acting that sharply capture the nuances of our society.Evokes laughter, sadness and hope.

— Mansoor Jaffer, Cape Cultural Collective

It is such a cleverly constructed play, with a brilliant performance by Kim Blanche Adonis… It is the kind of play that should be performed to young people throughout the country and…followed by a discussion of the issues raised.

— Ryland Fisher, former editor of the Cape Times

My Fellow South Africans…just go and see this laugh-cry production by which you cannot be unmoved.

— Nancy Richards, former host of a women’s programme on SAfm

Extracts from some of the reviews are:

My Fellow South Africans is bracing satirical sketch comedy, performed by Kim Blanche Adonis with great skill… Adonis… is funny and fabulous and there are moments of laugh-out-loud laughter, and we need that. — Robyn Cohen, Cape Robyn

My Fellow South Africans does exactly what it promises to do: it gives audiences an entertaining satirical take on contemporary South Africa and does so by merging wit and commentary in a provokingly entertaining manner. — Barbara

Loots, Theatre Scene Cape Town

Die stuk volg in die voetspore van die bekroonde Pay Back the Curry, State Fracture en Land Acts en is ‘n uitbunding, satiriese katarsis vir ons veelvuldige krisisse, met selfspot en humor as salf en versterkmiddel teen die donker. — Susan

Booyens, Litnet

(The piece follows in the footsteps of the acclaimed Pay Back the Curry, State Fracture and Land Acts and is an exuberant, satirical catharsis for our multiple crises with self-mockery and humour as ointment and strength against the

darkness.) — Susan Booyens, Litnet

…this revue will spark conversation, discussion and debate, all of which are necessary in the year leading up to having our thumbnails stamped as we ink an ‘X’ onto a ballot. — Jamie Uranovsky, www.broadwayworld.com

“Everyone should see this!” is a common thread among those who have seen the show, and MVG Productions is committed to ensure that as many people as possible see the show.

Mike is a South African playwright and producer based in Cape Town.

Most recently, he served as the Coordinator of the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation, an initiative to support the South African dance and theatre sector through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

He has extensive experience in policy formulation and advocacy and in building artists’ networks, both in South Africa and across the African continent. Mike was the founding Secretary General of Arterial Network, a pan-African organisation advocating for the cultural dimension of development, human rights and democracy. He served on the expert facility of UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions from 2011-2018. He was the head writer of the team that produced Breathing New Vision into Theatre and Dance: National Theatre and Dance Policy, commissioned by South Africa’s Department of Sport, Arts and Culture in 2021/22.

After the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, he was appointed as a Special Advisor to the minister responsible for arts and culture, where he played an influential role in helping to develop post-apartheid cultural policies.

As a playwright with 41 plays under his belt, he is regarded as one of South Africa’s foremost contemporary playwrights, having garnered numerous awards and nominations for his work which generally engages the personal and the political.

He is the 2018 recipient of the Swedish Hiroshima Prize for Peace and Culture. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Pretoria in recognition of his work as a playwright and as a cultural activist in the same year.

Mike is a founding member of the Palestinian Arts and Culture Solidarity Collective (PACSOC).

Kim Blanché Adonis graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, specialising in bilingual acting from the University of Cape Town in 2019.

She has worked in children’s theatre, as a television presenter as well as an actor in film and a television series. Her first stage one-hander was He Had It Coming, a script dealing with gender-based violence written by Mike van Graan and directed by Daniel Mpilo Richards in 2022.

It was the following year that she embarked on her current journey with Van Graan’s satirical revue, My Fellow South Africans. It has toured to many of the country’s major theatres and festivals, as well as to university lecture theatres, hotel function rooms, NGO spaces, school halls, retirement villages, and even people’s homes. She has performed the show – and its successor, My Fellow Coalition Partners – more than 150 times and has collected at least two ‘Best Solo Performance’ awards together with a string of nominations along the way. She also teaches and mentors young actors.

Bev has over 43 years of experience conducting community art sessions with youth in art and female social inclusive programs as part of therapy and escapism.

Her accolades include winning school competitions and private sector prizes., including the BP South Africa competition which funded her second-year studies.

She already has over 100 artworks in circulation, the majority of them are commissions. Many of her pieces were designed for individual South African clients living abroad, who love having memories of home away from home. Her Township Art and the Bo-Kaap colourful houses series are two such examples. The Bo-Kaap works have been seen in a variety of locations around the world, including different provinces.

Bev also has an international footprint, with two wall murals in Namibia.

Bev’s style is primarily realistic but is elevated by impressionistic techniques and a bold, vibrant palette. Working mostly with acrylics, she sees African women’s attire as expressive, leading her to use mixed media to create texture. Her latest passions include capturing mother-and-child imagery from her hikes and incorporating the fluidity of the sea into her work.

Chris has been writing and performing poetry for more than 30 years. He was a member of the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW) in the 1980s and organised cultural events during the anti-apartheid struggle, especially during the 1980s. He was a founder member of the Cape Cultural Collective in 2007.

His poems have been published in numerous anthologies including a prescribed anthology for high school learners, Carapace, two Cape Cultural poetry anthologies – At Truth’s Edge (2011) and Beyond Truth’s Edge (2022), as well as in Voices Unbound (2023): Eighth International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry published by the Human Sciences Research Council.

Chris has performed at the District Six Museum, Castle of Good Hope, The Slave Church, the first Jazz on the Rocks event, the Cape Town Festival, the Autumn Festival in Paris (2013), Freedom Park in Pretoria, Artscape, the launch of Voices Unbound. He has also performed at the Open Book Festival (2023).

He writes and performs in Afrikaans, English and Kaaps. He has performed his poetry alongside sever artists including Hilton Schilder, guitarists Elton Goslett and Zacky Johnson. He is dedicated to youth development and employs poetry as an effective facilitation tool.

Diana is a poet of international acclaim who first gave voice to her powerful vision during a fellowship at the University of Utrecht in 1998, where she wrote her seminal poem, “I’ve come to take you home.” This tribute to Sarah Baartman — the indigenous South African woman taken from her country under false pretences — would become her most celebrated work. It touched the heart of the French Senate and moved them to a unanimous vote to return Baartman's remains to her homeland. The poem was subsequently published in the French Law, a first in their history.

Diana’s distinguished career is marked by several published volumes, including Ons Komvandaan, the 2010 collection I’ve come to take you home, and Die vrede kom later, launched in July 2019. In 2025, she expanded into a children’s book with, The boy who loved to dance / Die seun wat net wou dans, which is based on the life of ballet dancer Johaar Mosaval.

She has received many honours for her work including: the inaugural Mbokodo Award for poetry in 2012, Breede Valley Municipality - Freedom of the Town award (2020), the KykNet Legends Award, a lifetime achievement award from the SBA (Stigting vir Bemagtiging deur Afrikaans), and a Prestige Award from the ATKV. In 2022, Stellenbosch University bestowed an honorary doctorate upon her, cementing her scholarly and cultural impact for good.

Throughout her body of work, Diana has never strayed from a vital bearing on matters of race, gender, and reconciliation. This has secured her legacy as a defining voice in contemporary literature.

Originating in Pietermaritzburg Frank Meintjies has lived in the Western Cape and Gauteng. He has worked in the field of social development over many decades.

Frank’s creative writing has been included in several journals and anthologies.

He is the author of Stories from the African Pot, A Place to Night In (poetry) and a poetry chapbook titled ‘n Spinnekop, ‘n Saksofoon en ‘n Been Wat Praat.

Born and raised in Kleinmond, Frazer has spent over 25 years captivating audiences nationally and internationally with his authentically South African sound. His diverse career spans community organisations, local government, television, radio, and the creative arts.

He has a deep affinity for South African folk music, particularly lyrics that speak to the nation's heart. His work explores themes from protest to the upbeat traditional sounds of the Boland, including Riel and Kaapse styles. He regularly composes for short films, TV series, documentaries, and adverts. His collaborations are equally impressive, having set the work of prominent South African poets to music and partnered with Poet Laureates from Belgium and the Netherlands. This border-crossing work was honoured with the 2023 Toyota US Woordfees ‘In Verbondenheid’ Award.

As a musical director, musician, actor, or presenter, his excellence has been recognised with a Cannes award and accolades from the Kyknet Fiëstas, Fleur du Cap, Woordfees, Silwerskerm, and Blinkers festivals.

For 21 years, he has been the lead vocalist of Tribal Echo Orkes and is currently working on a solo album. A multi-instrumentalist, Frazer also designs and crafts unique traditional instruments.

Beyond his professional career, he is deeply committed to community development, acknowledged by the 2019 Overstrand Mayor's Award. He actively gives back through mentorship and championing arts, culture, and the Afrikaans language, for which he received the 2020 Cordis Trust ‘Orde van die Beiteltjie’ Award. He is a familiar face as the presenter of KykNet's Fiësta (2015-2024) and Ommighellie (2022-2023), and RSG's Rymklets Sonder Grense (2022-2024).

His ongoing commitment to the arts is reflected in his recent roles:

• 2020-2022: Mentor for the Jakes Gerwel Songwriting Programme at Paulet House, Eastern Cape.
• 2023: Patron of the WAT ‘Borg ’n Woord’ (Sponsor a Word) campaign.
• 2023: Headline Festival Artist for the ‘Festival Voor Het Afrikaans’, The Hague, Netherlands.
• 2023-2025: Facilitator for the Stellenbosch University WOW (Woorde Open Wêrelde) schools project.
• 2025: Founder member and mentor for the Kleinmond Arts & Culture Centre.

Gertrude, an indigenous/slave descendant born in Cape Town, was active in grassroots women’s organisations during the 1980s. She became a key member of the Women’s National Coalition, which successfully advocated for gender rights to be included in the South African Constitution (1996). She also spearheaded various structures, including the black women’s writing collective Women’s Education and Artistic Voice and Expressions (WEAVE) and the Gender Advocacy Project (GAP), which bridged the gap in communication between grassroots women and women in parliament.

While sentenced to solitary confinement as a political prisoner, she mentally composed a play, The Spirit Cannot be Caged. She later performed it at the 1995 Beijing World Women’s NGO Conference as part of a workshop on ‘Creative ways in which women deal with trauma’. The play has since been performed for diverse audiences in several countries, including Cuba, Nicaragua, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Since 1994, she has served as a Member of Parliament and a Gender Equality Commissioner. Her distinguished academic portfolio includes holding the Wynona Lipman Chair at the Center for American Women and Politics (Rutgers), serving as a professor extraordinaire (UWC), and holding a Transitional Justice professorship at both Rwanda University and Sol Plaatje University. Gertrude was honoured with the 1997 Hammet-Hellman Human Rights Writers’ Prize and the British Council Chevening prize for leaders, among many other accolades. In 2019, her play Lookalike Terrorist was nominated by Artscape as one of the four best new plays. She is also a published author of feminist fiction and non-fiction.

Ina is a social and development worker who also writes creatively. She has published poetry, but Dance on the Red-Brown Earth is her first novel. She wrote the novel after working with women in Khayelitsha for a long period, specifically on strategies to overcome poverty and the role that one’s aspirations can play in helping you to change your life. The novel has several themes. Among others, it is an exploration of the historical reasons why change is so difficult for many women in South Africa.

She holds a post-retirement position at the Institute for Social Development at UWC and is an active member of the Western Cape Grail.

Nadia is a passionate and dedicated artist with over 20 years of experience in the creative arts. She has spent her life using art as a form of personal expression as well as a powerful tool for healing, empowerment, and social change. Her journey began in the world of paint and design, where she worked as a paint specialist and later took on the role of assistant manager and paint decorator at The Painting Shed in 2014. Her deep understanding of colour, texture, and form laid a strong foundation for what would become a lifelong commitment to making a difference through creativity.

Driven by her belief in the transformative power of art, Nadia has extended her talents beyond the canvas. For the past 10 years, she has worked at a juvenile centre, dedicating herself to the life space of children in conflict with the law. Through art, she helps these youth process to trauma, build confidence, and discover a sense of purpose. Her workshops provide not only a creative outlet but a life-changing experience where participants learn skills that help them navigate difficult pasts and envision brighter futures.

She is the founder of Crafti Creations, a registered Non-Profit Company (NPC) that brings art education and emotional healing to children. Through this initiative, she offers art classes that enable children to use their creativity to work through trauma. Each year, Crafti Creations hosts an art exhibition, giving the young artists the opportunity to showcase and sell their work — earning recognition and financial reward for their efforts.

Nadia Albertus continues to inspire through her unwavering dedication to the arts and to the development of young lives. Her mission is clear: to use creativity as a bridge to healing, self-worth, and opportunity.

Roché Kester is a writer and performer who hails from Cape Town. She was the curator of the weekly poetry event, Grounding Sessions that ran for three years in Cape Town.

She was co-curator of #CocreatePoetica at Open Book Festival 2016. Roché has curated events for the Franschhoek Literary Festival as well as the McGregor Poetry Festival.

Her poetry has been published in the UWC Creates anthology, This is my land (2012). Her prose has been featured in POWA’s Women’s Writing anthology, Sisterhood (2012). She was also published in an anthology, Touch (2021). She believes that literature and art in all its forms can be used as a means to dismantle the violent structures that perpetuate oppression towards marginalised groups.

Shihaam is a creative producer and indigenous food storyteller whose work fuses ancestral knowledge, foraged ingredients, and culinary heritage in contemporary food experiences. Her practice is rooted in honouring the land and sea, drawing on indigenous plants and seasonal abundance to craft menus that are as much about memory and identity as they are about taste.

She has curated food stories that reconnect people with the histories of the Cape, including a menu in honour of Krotoa. This timeless menu reimagines what might have been eaten at the Cape in the 1600s using ingredients sourced from veld, coast, and small-scale custodians. Her work often bridges ritual and innovation, from reimagining childhood traditions such as Easter pickled fish to leading conversations at the Food Imbizo about the risks and potentials of indigenous food revival.

Through her cooking, storytelling, and advocacy, Shihaam invites communities to rediscover the dignity, creativity, and resilience within indigenous food systems; reviving lost flavours while nourishing a deeper sense of belonging to place and culture.

Toni is a Sacred Storykeeper of the Womb. She listens for the stories that heal our inherited and ancestral traumas, reclaim our ancestral wisdoms and gifts, so that we can remember who and what we truly are.

Born and raised in Camissa, at the foot of Hoerikwaggo, she works as a writer, poet & creative writing teacher. Her writing is published in the journals Poetry (2022) and Callaloo (2019); the anthology Our Ghosts Were Once People (ed, Bongani Kona, Jonathan Ball, 2021), as well as a range of other anthologies, journals and non-fiction books.

She has an MA Writer/Teacher (Distinction) from Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was a 2014/2015 Chevening Scholar.

Vusumuzi is a multi-award-winning and published spoken word artist who has earned acclaim for his powerful performances and authentic storytelling. His work captures the lived experiences and emotions that shape the youth narrative, offering a voice that is both personal and relatable.

Beyond the stage, Vusumuzi amplifies this narrative through his commitment to community development. He works closely with young people to inspire and lead youth-driven change. As a member of the Cape Cultural Collective’s Steering Committee, he project-manages the CCC Writers’ Club and oversees the CCC’s social media initiatives.

A multi-faceted creative, Vusumuzi Mpofu aspires to inspire and influence through innovation, using the transformative power of Slam Poetry to contribute to the betterment of society.

Cape Town-born multi-visual artist and poet Winslow Schalkwyk has been a vital provocateur since 2006, using raw poetry and creative expression through film and photography to dissect identity and gender.

Their work is a powerful rebuttal to cishet-centric narratives, dedicated to unlearning conditioning, redefining intimacy, and reclaiming love of self, legacy and heritage. Poetry (2025), a journey through queer love that examines the interplay of identity and sexual power against the backdrop of a painful breakup. The short film Echoes in the Darkroom, created in support of the collection, debuted at the 2025 Poetry Africa Film Festival. Further notable works include Sugarwater, a digital experience exploring the multifaceted Cape Coloured queer experience which started as an online poetry experience with video vignettes for each poem and was then selected to be part of the 2020 Virtual National Arts Festival Fringe Programme and re-filmed and staged at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. Their earlier work, Freedom Dialogue (2012 National Arts Festival, Makhanda), addressed South Africa's fight for freedom. Their poetry also appears in Cape Cultural Collective’s anthology, Beyond Truth's Edge (2022).

Winslow’s art is an audacious pursuit of wholeness, challenging binaries and expanding the narratives that matter, while forging a new, essential paradigm for the human experience.