Motlatji Mjamba

Motlatji Mjamba (neé Ditodi) is an actor, theatre director, and acting lecturer. While completing her BA Audio Visual Production Management degree at The University of Johannesburg, she received her vocal, acting, and dance training in the (then) RAU Choir, RAU Song and Dance Company (a musical company), RAU Dramatic Company, and RAU Contemporary Dance Company. She took part in various projects under the WITS Drama For Life programme, notably being a member of the DFL Playback Theatre Company for a few years. Professional theatre acting credits include Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena, Moliere’s The Miser (a role for which she received a Naledi Theatre Award nomination for ‘Best Breakthrough Performance’), and Mike van Graan’s Another One’s Bread. Television credits include Kota Life Crisis, Soap on a Rope, and SABC 3’s flagship tv series High Rollers, among others. As a young director, she was nurtured under the tutelage of Alby Michaels (Associate Director at University of Johannesburg). She was Assistant Director for a few years on several UJ Arts Centre productions. The productions on which she worked ranged from novel adaptations such as K Sello Duiker’s The Quiet Violence of Dreams, to international cult musicals such as Howard Ashman’s Little Shop of Horrors. Her directing debut took place in 2011 when she did a staged reading of Myth of Andrew and Jo by Gideon van Eeden. She followed this up with directing Romeo ‘n Juliet Unplugged adapted by Robin Malan, which was the UJ Arts & Culture’s first foray into touring Theatre in Education (TIE) in various schools in Johannesburg. In 2013, she was awarded the Arts and Culture Trust’s ImpACT Award for Theatre for her body of work up till that point. Since then, she has added the following productions under her directing belt: Marat/Sade (UJ Arts Centre), The Boy Who Walked Into The World (Soweto Theatre and National Arts Student Festival), Chomi (Artscape Theatre and National Arts Festival), Lysistrata (AFDA Johannesburg), Funnyhouse of a Negro (AFDA Cape Town), and Nongogo (AFDA Cape Town). She is currently studying towards her Master’s in Theatre and Performance at UCT.