To life, with love | Summer School

TO LIFE, WITH LOVE

John Maytham, presenter, actor; Mike van Graan, playwright

Tuesday 20 January  7.00 pm  COURSE FEES R150; Staff and students R100

John Maytham commissioned multiple award-winning playwright Mike van Graan to write him a one-person play with a blank canvas regarding themes. Inspired by Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal and drawing on Helena Dolny’s book, Before Ever After, Mike developed To Life, With Love, a poetic piece featuring Thomas Michael Faulkner. Thomas has experienced love, professional success, personal loss and social affirmation. Then, in his sixties, Thomas is diagnosed with a dread disease. There is a great chance of recovery, but Thomas is confronted by his mortality. With many good years ahead, Thomas makes choices about how he will live.

Mike van Graan will be available after the performance to answer questions.

TO BOOK: https://www.webtickets.co.za/performance.aspx?itemid=1575285018

Mike van Graan is a South African playwright and producer based in Cape Town. As a playwright with 40 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.

Mike van Graan graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BA Honours Degree in Drama and was appointed as an Associate Professor in UCT’s Drama Department from 2015-2019. He has served in leadership positions in a variety of anti-apartheid cultural organisations including Director of the Community Arts Project, Projects Officer for the Congress of South African Writers and General Secretary of the National Arts Coalition. 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.

His most recent works include the multiple award-winning satire, My Fellow South Africans, a commission from John Maytham, To Life, With Love, the comedy drama, I Can Buy Myself Flowers and The Good White a searing interrogation of the post-1994 non-racial project, recently produced by the Market Theatre and Die Suidoosterfees.

John Maytham is the host of Afternoon Drive on Cape Talk Radio. He was a founder member of the station when it started in 1997. He’s grateful his radio schedule allows him occasional forays into the theatre.’