The Arts & Culture Trust (ACT) named actress Thembi Mtshali-Jones as the 2015 winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Theatre. This category is sponsored by DALRO (Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation.)
Thembi Mtshali-Jones (Photographer – Hetty Zantman)
The multi-talented Thembi Mtshali-Jones was born on 7 November 1949, in Durban and grew up in the township of KwaMashup. She is hailed as one of South Africa’s most celebrated artists owing to her talents as a singer, actress and playwright.
She was discovered by Welcome Msomi and performed in uMabatha – Msomi’s adaptation of Macbeth set in the tribal Zulu culture of the early 19th century which details how Mabatha overthrows Dangane. She then got the lead role in the 1974 musical Ipi Tombi (Iphi iNtombi) by South African writers Bertha Egnos Godfrey and Gail Lakier, where she played Mama Tembu. The production enjoyed major success and toured the world where she got to perform in West End’s Her Majesty’s Theatre and on Broadway at the Harkness Theatre.
While in the USA, Mtshali-Jones met both Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba and worked with both artists during their tours of Europe and Africa. In 1987, once back in South Africa, she joined the Market Theatre working with Janice Honeyman in Black and White Follies, then moved on to work with a list of incredible industry folk which exposed her to win multiple awards for her work as a performer and writer.
From 2006, she began appearing in the international production of American directors Michael Lessac’s Truth in Translation which opened in Rwanda, and she has performed in the USA, Europe and Africa. For 2007’s Baxter Theatre run, the American Time Magazine wrote this about her: “The raw gospel lament sung by Thembi Mtshali-Jones has extraordinary power, leaving the audience in pale shock as the interval lights come up”.
Her extended television career includes starring in the long-running sit-coms Sgudi’Snayis and Stokvel, which was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2004. Her film work includes the female lead role in Mapantsula (Best New Film at the Cannes International Film Festival, 1988), In My Country, Cape of Good Hope, The Wooden Camera and Themba.
In 2009 Mtshali-Jones as awarded the Living Legend Award by the City of Durban and province of KwaZulu-Natal.
She’s had residencies at the Gallaudet University in Washington DC, USA in 1998 and the University of Louisville in 2004. Her time in Liousville was well received that she was made an Honorary Citizen of the town, where the Governor of Kentucky gave her the highest honour Kentucky can bestow on a civilian by making her a Honorary Kentucky Colonel.
The 2014 Standing Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown award winner says that one of her favourite moments was singing Happy Birthday to late and former South African president Nelson Mandela on his 80th birthday celebration in Washington, with the event being broadcasted live on CNN.
This award was presented by Motshabi Tyelele and ACT Trustee, Maureen Lahoud.
Presented by the Arts & Culture Trust and hosted by Sun International, the ACT Awards was supported by long-time partners SAMRO, DALRO, Media24 Books, Nedbank Arts Affinity, Distell Foundation, Creative Feel Magazine and Business and Arts South Africa. JTI came on board this year as sponsor of the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award for Dance.
Other Lifetime Achievement Award Winners include: Don Mattera for Literature, Omar Badsha for Visual Art, Johnny Mekoa for Arts Advocacy, Alfred Hinkel for Dance and Caiphus Semenya for Music.
Each Lifetime Achievement Award winner receives R30 000 as a cash prize.
Click here for more information about the Arts & Culture Trust (ACT).
The Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Organisation (DALRO) is a multi-purpose copyright society that collects royalties for the use of copyright-protected works on behalf of authors and publishers, which it then distributes back to the correct copyright-owner. As a custodian of copyright and the protection of rightsholders’ works, DALRO’s main areas of administration are reprographic reproduction rights (photocopying from published editions), public performance rights (including stage rights for book musicals and dramas) and reproduction rights (whether for publishing or copying) in works of visual art. Click here for more information.