Monde Mayephu Creative Arts Foundation

Already have acting experience and want to expand your horizons? ✍🏽🎭

Introducing The Write Stuff — where the actor meets the writer. In partnership with Monde Mayephu, this exciting new course at The Market Theatre Laboratory invites you to create, develop, and perform your very own solo piece.

From building powerful characters to crafting a story that moves an audience — you’ll take the stage in your own 10–15 minute production.

🗓 09 May – 26 July 2026 (Every Saturday)

🚨 Registration is OPEN NOW — everyday until 2 May
11AM – 6PM
Register online via WhatsApp: 068 455 0561

Ready to own your voice and tell your story? This is your moment. 🔥

The Write Stuff: An Introduction to solo performance writing
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The Write Stuff: An Introduction to solo performance writing
The Write Stuff: An Introduction to solo performance writing
09 May - 26 Jul 2026
R3000
About
The Market Theatre Laboratory is excited to launch the latest edition to the part-time packages, partnering with Monde Mayephu, called The Write Stuff. This course delves into the art of writing and developing the solo act. Where the actor meets the writer in an attempt to develop solo scripts. A one-person show usually follows a clear, three-act structure: beginning, middle, and end. This course will introduce the actor to understanding the central character and conflict, then learn how to build toward a climax where the character faces a major challenge or realization.

Finally, diving into how they resolve the conflict in a way that brings emotional closure to the story.?The course culminates in the performance of your own 10 – 15-minute solo production, as the author and the actor.

The course begins on 09 May 2026 – 26 July 2026. Attendance in all sessions is required to successfully complete the course. The class takes place once a week, Saturday for 3 hours, 08h30 to 12h00.

Once you have purchased your ticket, please register prior to the start date with the course administrator on one of the following dates: 28 April 2026 – 02 May 2026 between 11h00 – 18h00 at the Market Square Complex.

Please note once you purchase this ticket, there will be no refund. You are rather encouraged to take the course on the next cycle.

he Monde Mayephu Method™
Principle: The Unexplained Question
At the heart of every powerful story lies a mystery the writer does not yet understand.
A script should not begin with an answer.
It should begin with a question that unsettles the writer.
The audience is drawn into the story because they sense the writer is searching, not explaining.

The Monde Mayephu Method™ begins from not knowing. It recognises that most performers become artists because they are seeking clarity about something life did not explain. Through disciplined curiosity, writing, and embodiment, participants investigate the questions that first drew them to theatre. Agency emerges not as a lesson, but as an artistic consequence — the performer taking responsibility for meaning, form, and presence.

THE MASTER OF ALIBIS

Written by Monde Mayephu

A One-Man Play — Season 1: The Architect of Power
The Master of Alibis is a one-man political thriller conceived as a five-season theatrical work. Season One, The Architect of Power, introduces Elias — a fixer, strategist, and invisible architect of influence who operates behind public institutions without ever appearing on the ballot.
Addressing the audience with forensic calm, Elias dismantles the myth of power as charisma or ideology. Instead, he reveals how political ecosystems truly grow: through systems of permission, narrative correction, and strategic silence. As he traces the rise of a powerful public official, the quiet regulatory force of a spouse who edits reality, and the fatal disruption caused by a truth-seeker who believed systems were meant to make sense, the audience is drawn into the machinery of governance itself.
There are no arrests, no public collapses, and no clear villains. The crisis does not explode — it stabilizes. What unfolds instead is Elias’s transformation from problem-solver into infrastructure: a figure so embedded in the system that removal would feel like vandalism rather than justice.
Performed entirely by Elias on a bare stage with a glass table and a briefcase of documents, The Master of Alibis rejects spectacle in favor of precision. Silence, breath, and restraint become the primary tools of power. Other characters exist only as forces, functions, and absences, reinforcing the play’s central thesis: power does not survive by defending itself, but by making itself indispensable.
Season One concludes without resolution, leaving the audience with a disturbing clarity — not about who is corrupt, but about how systems learn, adapt, and endure.

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Want: This is what the main character desires or pursues throughout the story. It’s typically a specific goal or objective that they believe will bring them happiness, success, or fulfillment. The “want” often drives the plot forward as the character takes actions to achieve it.

Need: This is what the main character actually requires on a deeper, emotional or psychological level. It’s often something they may not be aware of at the beginning of the story, but through their experiences and interactions, they come to realize what they truly need for personal growth or fulfillment. The “need” relates more to the underlying theme or message of the story.

So, the saying “want is plot, need is theme” highlights the distinction between the external, surface-level desires that drive the plot forward (the character’s “want”) and the internal, deeper emotional or psychological journey that underscores the theme of the story (the character’s “need”). While the “want” primarily dictates the events and actions of the plot, the “need” explores the character’s inner transformation and the broader message or lesson conveyed

NAZO!

“DEEP PLAY” IN DRAMA WORK
Dorothy Heathcote was once working with a group of 45 children, in a drama set in a rhubarb canning factory. The children were very involved, on a level of “deep play,” working in groups in different parts of the “factory.” Dorothy thought the class was “great.” She was aware, however, that it might have seemed noisy and a bit chaotic to observers looking from the outside – especially in a schools system which so values quiet work and order. She wasn’t sure what the children’s regular classroom teacher made of it all:
Because they would find it probably daunting to work with that din... I'd hate to think we'd put them off [working in this way].
She also commented:
Now, that sort of deep play, you don’t see done in drama. It's differentiation from the beginning. It's messy looking. I mean, God help you if you try it where you've got a Head who likes everything neat and tidy.
Her advice for teachers starting this kind of work was this:
And don't do it for longer than ten minutes. Have a little pause.
Dorothy was very aware that, from a conventional classroom perspective, “deep play” is loud, physically active, unsynchronised, and “differentiated” in ways that are not easily named. To a teacher trained to read order as evidence of learning, this “din” can feel like loss of control, rather than engagement. Dorothy did not deny this perception; at the same time, she refused to redesign the work merely to look “neat and tidy.”
Her remark that “you don’t see [this] done in drama” is striking. She was distinguishing her work from drama as commonly practised. Much classroom drama now is tightly scaffolded, teacher-directed, and aimed at producing a performance or measurable outcome.
Her aside about the Head who “likes everything neat and tidy” was not flippant. She was recognising the constraints that teachers work under (awareness of inspection cultures, accountability regimes, managerial expectations of order, etc.) But she did not respond by advising teachers to avoid “deep play.” Instead, she offered a strategic compromise, for teachers trying it for the first time: “don’t do it for longer than ten minutes. Have a little pause.” She knew that not every teacher has the freedom she had; and that confidence grows with time. She recognised that “deep play” challenges, not only children’s habits, but teachers, in their professional identities, ways of working, and institutional norms. She was guiding them in how to inhabit risk gradually, without abandoning the transformative potential of the work.
It's a radical shift – a revolution, really – for teachers; and it can be a lot for some of them to take on at first.
Source: video of teaching session at King’s Norton High School, 19.5.94. Images of DH from Rolling Role and the National Curriculum Tape 12 (University of Newcastle, 1993)

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"Drama for Change" Launches Groundbreaking 2026 Tour to "Rewrite the Script" for South African Youth
[NORTH WEST PROVINCE/ BAPONG, SWARTRUGGENS, GROOTMARICO and DINOKANE] — Drama for Change, a leading applied-theatre NPO, is proud to announce the official launch of its 2026 "Subtext Rebels" Tour.
Over the next 12 months, the organization will visit schools across the region, using its innovative Building Blocks for Drama (BBD) methodology and Peer Education to tackle critical social issues, including road safety, bullying, and substance abuse.
Unlike traditional educational programs, Drama for Change uses Forum Theatre—a technique that allows learners to stop the action on stage and step into the roles themselves to rehearse real-life solutions.
"Our youth are facing complex pressures that 'Just Say No' posters can't solve," says Monde Mayephu, Chairperson of Drama for Change. "Through our 2026 tour, we are training a new generation of 'Drama Pioneers' who use the power of the stage to help students find their voice, set boundaries, and protect their futures."
The 2026 Tour features four specialized pillars:
Our Earth, Our Echo: An environmental justice project empowering "Eco-Warriors."
Safe Passage: Partnering with industry leaders to reduce pedestrian accidents.
Unmask the Power: A rigorous intervention targeting the culture of bullying.
The Choice is Mine: Empowerment and agency regarding teenage pregnancy.
The Great Escape: Deconstructing the social status of substance abuse.
Supported by local partners and corporate sponsors, the tour also features a Photovoice Exhibition, where students document their own community challenges through photography, creating a visual dialogue between the school and local leadership.
"We aren't just here to perform; we are here to plant seeds of sustainable change," Mayephu continues. "When we leave a school, the students don't just walk away with a memory—they walk away with a referral network and a new sense of agency."
About Drama for Change NPO: Drama for Change is a registered Non-Profit Organization (234-367 NPO) based in North West along the N4 route. Specialized in theatre for social change and trauma-informed facilitation, the NPO works to bridge the gap between social policy and community action through the arts.

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