Celebrating the birth & legacy of

ATHOL FUGARD

“I can’t think of a single one of my plays that does not represent a coincidence between an external and an internal event. Something outside of me, outside even my own life, something I read in a newspaper or witness on the street, something I see or hear, fascinates me. I see it for its dramatic potential. That external event affords me the opportunity to deal with what has been building up inside me.”

— Athol Fugard

Athol Fugard is a South African director, actor, and writer of more than thirty plays.  His plays have garnered the Tony Award, Obie Award, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, Drama Desk Award and many others.  He is best known for creating works confronting the racial segregation of apartheid, and today continues to pen insightful plays addressing modern inequality.

Fugard grew up in Port Elizabeth, South Africa raised by an Irish father and Afrikaner mother. He studied Philosophy and Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, but dropped out to hitchhike across Africa and work as a deck hand on a steamer ship.

In 1956, Fugard returned to Port Elizabeth and married actress Sheila Meiring, who nurtured his love of theatre. Together they founded The Circle Players, for which Fugard wrote his first play, Klaas and the Devil (1956). The pair then moved to Johannesburg, where Fugard took a job as a clerk at the Native Commissioner’s Court. The Court dealt with black persons charged with violations of the Pass Laws that restricted their movements in apartheid South Africa. Fugard was appalled by the injustices he witnessed in the court.

“Those are big collisions, Hally. They make for a lot of bruises. People get hurt in all that bumping, and we're sick and tired of it now. It's been going on for too long. Are we never going to get it right?...Learn to dance life like champions instead of always being just a bunch of beginners at it?”

— Athol Fugard, “Master Harold” . . . and the Boys

While working as a stage manager for South Africa’s National Theatre Organization, Fugard wrote Blood Knot (1961), the play that earned him international recognition.   As a result of the play’s criticism of apartheid, the South African government withdrew Fugard’s passport for four years. When he supported the Anti-Apartheid Movement’s boycott of segregated theatre audiences, the government further restricted his movements and the Secret Police began surveilling his theatre company.

Blood Knot premiered on Broadway in 1985 and received a Tony nomination for Best Play.

The Road to Mecca (1984) premiered on Broadway in 2012 featuring Rosemary Harris and Jim Dale.   (A film version was directed by Fugard in 1991 with Kathy Bates.)

Fugard also wrote A Place With the Pigs (1987) and My Children My Africa! (1989) which addresses the generational conflict over the most effective means for ending apartheid in South Africa.   Actors Co-op produced My Children My Africa! in 2015. 

After a long struggle, in 1990 the apartheid system was abolished officially in South Africa. 

Some of Fugard’s  later plays, which are frequently more personal than political, include My Life (1992), Playland (1993), Valley Song (1996), The Captain’s Tiger (1997), Sorrows and Rejoicings (2001), Exits and Entrances (2004), Booitjie and the Oubaas (2006), Victory (2007), Coming Home (2009), Have You Seen Us (2009), The Train Driver (2010) and The Blue Iris (2012).

Fugard was an Adjunct Professor of Playwriting, Acting, and Directing at University of California San Diego. In 2010, The Fugard Theatre opened in Cape Town, debuting with Fugard’s play The Train Driver (2010).  Over the past 20 years, many of Fugard’s plays have premiered locally at The Fountain Theatre.

Fugard remains one of the world’s most prolific and oft-produced playwrights. In 2011, Athol Fugard was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award. His richly human plays challenge his audience to confront and address social injustice.

Portions of this biography were provided by britannica.com and literariness.org

Learn More About
ATHOL FUGARD:

✨ Next week… ✨

Give a gift!

As we look to the future with hope,
we are so grateful to our community!
Your generosity helps us
keep the lights on while our stages are dark.