Cab Festival opens call for collective and mentorship programme

Image supplied: Roland Perold, Cab Festival project manager

After the three months programme, the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA) will select some of the works for the Cab Festival Showcase held in 2023.

During the previous programme, two composers were chosen to receive grants for further development with dramaturgical support from Janice Honeyman. Their subsequent chamber musicals received a professional staging in Durban and Gqebera in March 2022.

“Positive audience reaction and excellent attendance bode well for the future of new writing in the genre,” says Roland Perold, Cab Festival project manager. “There’s real momentum with this project which sparked rumblings across the country with its high-quality intimate productions. Audiences have taken notice.”

What to know

Applicants must provide reference materials demonstrating their ability to write/compose for musical theatre, meaning they understand songwriting within a dramatic framework.

Those chosen will need to attend bi-monthly Zoom sessions on Sunday mornings at 10am and be prepared to share their songs in development during these sessions. There will be peer feedback as well as professional insights from the panel. Sessions begin on 4 September through 11 December 2022. All dates are available within the online application form.

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Selected participants will participate in a three-month writing collective that runs online and is facilitated by Perold. This year writers will need to write two songs; one of which must be an up-tempo number from a piece of musical theatre they wish to develop or are developing. This can be the beginning of a book musical or a collection of works linked to a strong theme or central idea.

This year, specialised guidance will be provided by Johannesburg-based director Lesedi Job and Cape Town-based producer and composer Jaco Griessel. During the online mentoring sessions, Job will provide dramaturgical insights as the participants share their works in development.

Job is a respected theatre maker with a keen interest in musical theatre and winner of the Naledi award for her direction of When Swallows Cry. Griessel was a Mandela-Rhodes scholar for composition and is actively involved in promoting chamber musicals in South Africa. Griessel devised and implemented a tertiary-level musical theatre writing course for Lamta Academy in Camps Bay, the first of its kind in South Africa.

Participants selected for the Cab Festival will receive a stipend of R3,500 for writing two songs that the CCA has the option of staging during the 2023 Cab Festival Showcase. Composers may write for up to a maximum of four voices. The showcase will be performed by two men, two women and a live pianist. An independent panel will adjudicate the songs presented at the showcase, and a 2023 winner will be announced.

Applications for the second CAB Festival are accessible here. The application deadline is 14 August and participants will be announced on 22 August.