Empatheatre

We are starting 2026 with a bang. Booking now open.

Siphethe konke next year!! 🔥

Upcoming- Isitha Sabantu🎭

08-22 March 2026

A fictional tale inspired by real-life South African eco-defenders, Isitha Sabantu follows two grandmothers – one elephant, one human – as they fight to protect their families and land from corruption and extravism. Brought to life by the award-winning company, Empatheatre, and featuring an all-star cast and creative team, the work blends research, poetry, puppetry, music and myth to explore courage, community and our deep connections with the land and our ancestors. Empatheatre’s highly anticipated new work, Isitha Sabantu, is a story of courage, interdependence, and the love that binds humans, ancestors and other beings to the land.

Age Recommendation :13 years and above

We have had the most magical week at in Oslo, Norway- sharing Empatheatre stories for building social tissue in the pilycrises - we designed this workshop during Covid, intended to be a four week course- it’s been fascinating to see what’s possible in three days….

We draw from the incredible learnings and insights from all the people who have guided us over the past decade who have helped us shape our principles and practices.

It’s been such a gift to spend time with other theatre makers, storytellers, researchers, writers, dancers, philosphers and the magical “Grandmother of Peace”. Thank you and Hugo Reinert at the University of Oslo who made this all possible.

Empatheatre's Dylan McGarry speaks to the Life Worlds podcast. Well worth a listen.

33. Empatheatre: Social Sculpture & Feeling Across Worlds Podcast Episode · Lifeworlds · 10/16/2025 · 1h 17m

Empatheatre has just returned to the Global Transformations TC/ESG25 Conference:
Navigating Sustainability Transformations Towards Justice and Equity.

We were so honoured to be able to show our new play “Unruly” directed by cofounder as well as have our confounder give a keynote performative lecture and a panel with fellow founder . We were hosted a three hour workshop on empatheatre principles and practices, shared our films, exhibitions and participated in other panels and sessions.

It was profound to see the interest and willingness to see public storytelling as a vital contribution towards how we will transform into a more just and equitable community.

We can’t wait to follow up with all the new friends and connections we have made.

Special thanks to our friends at .enqvist And that made this intervention possible.

We are so moved by the response of “Unruly” at the - here are some of the latest reviews- swipe left ⬅️

Through Unruly, we aim to reframe “conflict” not as a failure of order, but as a signal of deeper, unresolved entanglements between people, place, and more-than-human kin.

This project has become a site not just of storytelling, but of reckoning with the deep entanglements of post-apartheid land politics, racialised histories of removal, moral imaginaries, and who gets to decide the fates of our more-than-human family?

In the process, we found ourselves grappling with the nature of conflict itself—its species boundaries, its perceptual fractures, and its invitation for radical empathy.

As cultural ecologist and co founder of Empatheatre and co-author of unruly shares:

“Unruly explores how baboons are not just an ecological problem to be managed, but storytellers of an old hurt- and perhaps a guide towards uncharted reconciliation between humans and nature. As such we cannot understand contemporary conflict, without looking to the past and memories of the land in which the conflict takes place.

“Unruly” plays provocatively on the dominant narrative that paints baboons as chaotic, lawless, and invasive. But as the play unfolds, it becomes clear that this label may in fact better describe the human community itself, particular those in seats of privilege that benefited from apartheid systems, and now vilify baboons as disturbing their priced sense of “safety” in a land where so many humans are not safe. The unruliness lies in our histories of conquest, our disavowal of interdependence, our broken promises to both the land and each other.

And so we ask: What does it mean to be held accountable by a species that remembers a time before man tamed fire?”

Created by

Featuring and

Lighting by music by

Gratitude to .enqvist for their research, funding & collaboration in making this all possible.

Special thanks to .obs and for their ongoing support.

We are so moved by the response of “Unruly” at the - here are some of the latest reviews- swipe left ⬅️

Through Unruly, we aim to reframe “conflict” not as a failure of order, but as a signal of deeper, unresolved entanglements between people, place, and more-than-human kin.

This project has become a site not just of storytelling, but of reckoning with the deep entanglements of post-apartheid land politics, racialised histories of removal, moral imaginaries, and who gets to decide the fates of our more-than-human family?

In the process, we found ourselves grappling with the nature of conflict itself—its species boundaries, its perceptual fractures, and its invitation for radical empathy.

As cultural ecologist and co founder of Empatheatre and co-author of unruly shares:

“Unruly explores how baboons are not just an ecological problem to be managed, but storytellers of an old hurt- and perhaps a guide towards uncharted reconciliation between humans and nature. As such we cannot understand contemporary conflict, without looking to the past and memories of the land in which the conflict takes place.
“Unruly” plays provocatively on the dominant narrative that paints baboons as chaotic, lawless, and invasive. But as the play unfolds, it becomes clear that this label may in fact better describe the human community itself. The unruliness lies in our histories of conquest, our disavowal of interdependence, our broken promises to both the land and each other.

And so we ask: What does it mean to be held accountable by a species that remembers a time before man tamed fire?”

Created by

Featuring and

Lighting by

Gratitude to .enqvist for the research, funding and collaborative support in making this project possible.

Special thanks to .obs and for their ongoing support.

"Drawing from a rich blend of academic insight and creative inquiry, Unruly invites audiences to step into the liminal spaces between urban life and the wild, asking probing questions about territory, kinship, and survival. The Cape Peninsula’s unique ecology pulses at the heart of this piece, grounding its narrative in the real-world entanglements of nature and civilisation.

What emerges is not a neat resolution, but an invitation – to reckon with the unpredictable rhythms of the natural world, and to consider, perhaps uncomfortably, the part we all play within it."

Unruly review at the Baxter | WeekendSpecial Unruly is a bold and imaginative foray into the tangled web of human-animal coexistence, currently on at the Baxter.

Unruly at the is transformed by the multi award winning lighting designer We don’t know where we would be without Tina’s gift of painting with light and sculpting feeling in the ether.

A massive thank you to Prosound for supporting Unruly with the loan of an ETC Gio @5 lighting desk! 🙌

Your generosity and sophisticated tech support made a world of difference — not just to the show, but to Tina too. Thanks to you, our tech and get-in were smooth, stress-free, and full of possibility. 💡✨

We’re so grateful for your ongoing support of theatre and the people behind the scenes who help make the magic happen.

We are open this week and run till the 2 August - book on

Cape Town don’t miss this Baxter Theatre!