Winners for the second year of the Brett Goldin Bursary awards are announced by the RSC
17 March 2008
Nearly two years after the deaths of Brett Goldin and his friend Richard Bloom in South Africa, the young actor’s memory was once again honoured on Saturday 8 March, at the Baxter Theatre Centre in Cape Town when Thami Mbongo and Nicholas Pauling were selected as winners of the 2008 Brett Goldin Bursary awards.
Goldin was murdered in April 2006, just days before he was due to leave for Stratford-upon-Avon to perform the role of Guildenstern in the Baxter Theatre Centre’s production of Hamlet, directed by Janet Suzman, as part of the RSC's Complete Works Festival.
The bursary was immediately founded in his name by the RSC, the Actors Centre in Johannesburg and the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town. The fund was then kick-started by donations from RSC Associate Artist Antony Sher, along with RSC Honorary Associate Artist Janet Suzman.
The two winners were chosen from a shortlist of nine actors selected from 103 applications across South Africa. The final selection being made by a panel comprising Janice Honeyman, Liz Mills and Paul Savage from the Baxter Theatre, who were joined by Antony Sher and Gregory Doran from the RSC and Denise Goldin – Brett’s mother and co-founder of the Bursary. The selection criteria stipulated that the actors should be South African citizens, under the age of 30 and have an interest in classical theatre.
Mbongo is the winner of the 2007 Aardklop Best Actor Award and was nominated as Best Supporting Actor in the 2007 Fleur du Cap Awards. His play, Township Talks, which he wrote and directed, is currently at the Ikhwezi Theatre Festival in the Baxter Sanlam Studio.
Pauling was nominated as Best Actor in last year’s Fleur du Cap Awards and has played several roles for Baxter Theatre Centre. He took over the role of Guildenstern in Hamlet, just days after Brett’s murder, and travelled with the company to Stratford-upon-Avon.
The successful bursars will travel to the UK in June and work with the RSC for three weeks as part of the Company’s Artist Development Department. The work programme will include voice warm ups, solo and company voice work, Artist Development and Education workshops and rehearsals with other members of the company, as well as the chance to observe and work with other departments within the RSC.
In 2007, the very first Brett Goldin Bursary award winner was 24 year old writer and director Omphile Molusi from Johannesburg, who spent the summer in London and Stratford with the RSC and described the experience as 'a life-changing experience'.
Further information
For further information on the RSC’s participation in the Bursary, please contact Philippa Harland, RSC Head of Press on philippa.harland@rsc.org.uk or 020 7845 0512.
Contributions
If you would like to contribute to the Brett Goldin Bursary, please send your cheques made payable to Royal Shakespeare Company to: The Brett Goldin Bursary c/o Jane Tassell, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6BB, and mark your cheque on the reverse Brett Goldin Bursary.
