Moving Forward (one step at a time)

Well this week we have finished with episode one finally! The over all product sounds good however its not mind blowing! Immediately after the episode was finished I played it to a group of young high school girls. This will be an on going exercise where we play all three episodes in a focus group setting to community members that have a direct link to the subject covered by the drama plays. We identified high school teenagers, nurses, teachers and parents as possible sources for the focus groups. The point behind all of this is to hear how the stake holders feel about the manner they have been represented through the drama series.
Reason two is to get more ideas for the next episodes. This helps us get in touch with the community and really get their true feelings about the subject of the radio drama plays.


The first focus group with the high school girls really highlighted that young girls and boys really do not have an avenue to talk about their community. There sees to be a lot of shame & guilt attached to sexual activeness more so for female youngsters than male.
The girls synonymously believe that a radio drama of our nature is “interesting & fun” BUT language usage a huge issue! The girls (and I agree with them) felt that our drama plays didn’t really connect or sound like it took place to their normal communities as people don’t speak English all the time there. This is indeed an issue we need to look into for the next episode. This is rather tricky as both my lecture and Vicky my partner do not speak Xhosa. Vicky also scripts the drama plays however if episode two is done in Xhosa she will not be able to script with me which I feel will kind of exclude her from the process.


We are at a critical time of the project… I think anyone who wants to succeed when partnering up with organizations like Egazini would have to be flexible and take more of an initiative to get the guys motivated and committed to the cause. This then complicates matters as we (Vicky & I) are supposedly partners with Ikhaya theatre group but at times we have to be the ones “taking care” of the project and pushing the Ikhaya theatre team to be behind this. Which makes us play more of bigger role than just being partners. At this time Ikhaya is busy preparing for this year’s National Arts Festival and all their energies are really focused on that as the National Arts Festival promises the rare financial compensation for theatre worked produced. I guess we are all learning as we go here ….