Keeping it Fresh...at Krekvars!

This week the craziness in my life reached new heights with opening of the Krekvars Student Arts Festival here at the University of Pretoria Campus. I landed in Johannesburg late last Saturday evening, downloaded my script, and started rehearsing Sunday morning at 10. Since then I’ve been pulling eight am to 10pm rehearsals to get the three shows I’m involved in ready to go on the planks this week!

I landed in Johannesburg last Saturday evening. When I got home I downloaded my script and started rehearsing on Sunday morning at 10. I finshed that evening at 11 and the rest of my week carried on in a smiliar fashion with 8 am mornings and finishing after 9 in the evenings. All this in an attempt to get the three shows I'm in ready to go on the planks this week at the Kekvars Student Arts Festival held at the University of Pretoria.

Now, obviously, with my schedule as it is there is little to no time to wash my car, and this ingenious bystander decider to share (I’m assuming) his frustrations on my car! I found this after a rehearsal on camus:



I'll give him this... it's original! Unperturbed I drove around with this message for a week!



Friday brought about another performance of CHASING for the press opening at Krekvars, and I do believe that we as a cast really outdid ourselves. We were informed, however, before our performance that the Dean of Humanities would be attending the performance. Not only was the funding for the show to go to Washington riding on the quality of the performance at the Press Opening, but also extra funding for the drama department. So basically, if we screwed up we would be in the popular position of being the reason why next year’s shows have no budgets. Not exactly where I would I like to be. I looked at my director when we were informed of this: “No pressure hey”.

I am happy to report that we did do really well and if we don’t to overseas, or if we don’t go to Washington I think we as a cast will still be proud of what we did.

Now Krekvars is quite a small festival when it comes to festivals, and its mostly productions from local students that play here. I was exceptionally lucky that I got cast in my second year of studies to perform in a show that went to The National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. After my first year the older students were celebrities who did well at Krekvars, but before I even had the chance to perform at Krekvars myself I learned that the world of the arts is much, MUCH bigger than a few 45 minute shows at Krekvars. Each university had their own celebrities from their shows, and I was just one performer of many in the over 300 shows that are on the planks in Grhamstown for 10 days. I didn’t get the opportunity to feel like a celebrity at Krekvars because I knew what was waiting outside the gates of the Universtiy. Real life is quite scary. But none the less, Krekvars is a great experience and always promises to be a lot of fun for everyone who’s working and performing at Krekvars. It is also a good testing ground for shows, and a good motivation to get them finished!

Tomorrow and Saturday I do 3 performances on each day of three different shows. It’s wild ride doing what we do. But after all the craziness of the last three weeks, come Monday, I need to start looking for the next adventure!

Now while I'm at it, Catch KNEES, CHASING and SUIKERBOSSIE tomorrow and Saturday at The Masker Theatre at the University of Pretoria!

KNEES: Friday at 11:30 at Saturday at 13:00

CHASING: Friday at 17:30 and Saturday at 20:30

SUIKERBOSSIE: Friday at 16:00 and Saturday at 22:00