Where is AMY JEPHTA now?

Quite simply, Amy Jephta stands head and shoulders above her peers. Not only is she beyond prolific – in theatre, in film and in TV – but her work is fierce, unbridled, diverse and complex. She is constantly writing, constantly playing with form and experimenting, and her profound love of theatre and wealth of knowledge of the cannon emerges in the skill of her writing, structure and adaptations from an exceptionally early age. In 2010 she was a prolific 22 year-old, writing, producing and directing. It was here that she cut her teeth on developing her craft, seeing the work produced on the stage, learning from watching and engaging in feedback. The plays simply tumbled out of her. These early works were brutal explorations of relationships, explored through the word and through silence. In these early years she found it incredibly difficult to let go of her writing and hand it over, but by 2012 she had separated within herself the playwright and director and her focus was purely on playwrighting. In the last couple of years, as she has moved into scriptwriting, she has returned to directing, but only for film. In theatre, she continues to hand her work over to theatre directors.

Amy won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2019, a prestigious national SA award. She has a musician brother, also a winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award, in the category of Jazz (the only family to have 2 winners in the 40 year history of the award) and the influence of jazz can be seen in her writing - most notably Free Falling Bird, where ‘she plays fast and loose with Euripides’ The Trojan Women, remixing this classic with the language of free-form jazz, poetry, tragedy and spectacle’ (Bush Theatre programme).

What is remarkable about Amy is that each of her plays are so completely different from each other in form, in style, in language. In her early work one can feel the strong influence of the greats – Pinter, Churchill etc – helping her shape and structure her voice and the concerns she is writing about. Rather than shying away with imitation she almost threw herself fully into it to understand how it works in shaping thoughts and emotions and ideas. By the time she wrote Other People’s Lives in 2012 she could leave that behind and was writing more freely. With a strong ear for the spoken and the unspoken, Other People’s Lives is an uncomfortable swing through time of two couples in one building, where violence against homosexuals is the norm. By the time she wrote Free Falling Bird in 2014 her anger was on the rise – ‘we are not nearly angry enough’ she says - and she is literally tripping over herself in the freedom of language that her mastery provides. As she grew into her politics - whilst she does not consider her plays activism (see New Frame article link below) - so her content speaks strongly to the different ways in which the violence of poverty and discrimination are so much a part of most South Africans’ lives. Her most recent play All Who Pass deals with this most delicately and most heartbreakingly.

Amy, like many South African playwrights, is bilingual, and writes masterfully in 2 languages. And like many South African playwrights is deeply embedded in community development. For many years she has been mentoring young playwrights both formally and informally. She has written short plays for community theatre groups, helping them shape their ideas into scripts that have elevated the quality of their work. Much of this has been done through the TWIST programme based in Kwa-Zulu Natal. In 2015 she organised and curated the 10th Women Playwrights International Conference in Cape Town and along with Yvette Hutchison from Leeds University initiated the African Women’s Playwright Network and edited the second only anthology of African women’s plays, published in 2018 which features extraordinary plays from Egypt to South Africa. She also co-manages the CASA Award with the Playwrights Guild of Canada’s Women’s Caucus, represented by Canadian playwright Beverley Cooper. The CASA Award has provided opportunity for 6 women playwrights to develop work under mentorship and include Koleka Putuma, Philisiwe Twijnstra, Genna Gardini, Tamara Guhrs, Rehane Abrahams and Tiisetso Mashifane.

Since 2010, Amy has written:

Damage Control – Intimate Theatre, Cape Town, 2010
Interiors – Intimate Theatre, Cape Town – 2010
Kitchen – Theatre Arts Admin Collective, Cape Town – 2010
Pornography – Intimate Theatre, Cape Town - 2010
Other People’s Lives – Artscape Theatre, Cape Town – 2012 – published by junket’s press in 2013 in SA Gay Plays vol 2 – an anthology of plays 1994 – 2013(http://pensouthafrica.co.za/sa-gay-plays-2-an-anthology-of-plays-1994-2013-compiled-by-robin-malan/)
Free Falling Bird – premiered at the Bush Theatre, London – 2012
Flight Lessons – Jermyn Street Theatre, London – 2014
Shoes – Royal Court Theatre / Carnegie Hall – performed by James MacEvoy and directed by Danny Boyle - 2015 and 2017
All Who Pass – National Arts Festival, Makhanda – 2019. This was commissioned as part of her Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2018
Kristalvlakte (based on Bertolt Brechts Mother Courage) – The Fugard Theatre, Cape Town and Aardklop Festival, Potchefstroom – 2018. Commissioned by the Suidoosterfees, an annual festival in Cape Town. Originally written in Afrikaans but translated by the playwright. Published.

Films include:

While You Weren't Looking - screenwriter - 2015
Soldaat - screenwriter / director - 2017
The Ellen Pakkies Story - screenwriter - 2018
Barakat - screenwriter / director - 2021
Late Bloomer - screenwriter / director - 2022

To see the scope of Amy's work:

Amy Jephta - Writer | Director

Film director Amy Jephta: ‘I want different people to b... (dailymaverick.co.za)

In gesprek met Amy Jephta, director en medeskrywer van Barakat (klyntji.com)

Amy Jephta and the tender theatre of memory : New Frame

Cape Town duo colour SA stories with radical authenticity (iol.co.za)