One of the news about theatre development in Zimbabwe that was shared by some thespians who celebrated the World Theatre Day on March 27, was the support provided by the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust to theatre organisations to secure rental of office space for a theatre centre at No.1 Robert Mugabe Road in Harare.
These premises were in the late 1980s used by the defunct National Theatre Organisation as office and library for rental of theatre scripts.Six months ago, Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust provided funds for the International Theatre Institute (Zimbabwe Centre), Zimbabwe Theatre Association, The Zimbabwe Association of Theatre for Children and Young People and Chipawo to rent office space and set-up what, in many respects, is now a theatre centre.
The support by Culture Fund ensures the opening to the theatre public the library of theatre scripts for rental and several books of theatre donated to Chipawo over the years.A number of Zimbabwean published plays which were donated to Chipawo by concerned playwrights and have been put into the playscript library are available to theatre groups that would like consider producing them. The playscript library has also the capacity to stork unpublished playscripts which theatre groups may want to consider. It is hoped that this Zimbabwean playscript database will grow and that a system of securing permission from respective authors will be developed and that in the near future the playscript database and concerned authors will be accessed online. (more…)
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