Shows Upstairs

A man and a woman sit oppo­site each other in the detached inti­macy of a train com­part­ment. They have never met. He is a world famous author; she is the ardent admirer of his work. She car­ries his lat­est book in her bag. Silence…

This play is a lit­er­ary mas­ter­piece, writ­ten by the Tony Award-winning Yas­mina Reza. Touch­ing, funny and poignant, you get sucked into the imag­i­na­tions of the two char­ac­ters who are des­per­ate to break out of their inner worlds and make a con­nec­tion with each other.

SAXIT! is a sax­o­phone quar­tet devel­oped by four pro­fes­sional musi­cians whose love of jazz and the sax­o­phone came together to play spe­cial­ist arrange­ments for the instru­men­ta­tion, to explore the tonal pos­si­bil­i­ties and joys of play­ing in an ensem­ble. Apart from per­form­ing spe­cially writ­ten arrange­ments of well known jazz stan­dards, a great deal of orig­i­nal music from South Africa and abroad are per­formed. The sounds vary in inten­sity, mood and grooves, with a great deal of impro­vi­sa­tion tak­ing place. A fresh sound to Cape Town audiences.

BRYAN MILES is a young and unique per­former in the world of magic. He can seem­ingly pre­dict and influ­ence human behav­iour. He describes his art as a com­bi­na­tion of skills includ­ing; magic, non-verbal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the power of sug­ges­tion.

He reads thoughts, pre­dicts unlikely events and ulti­mately makes the impos­si­ble pos­si­ble. Bryan’s blend of tal­ent and humour cre­ates a relaxed and fun, yet stim­u­lat­ing and thought-provoking expe­ri­ence for the whole audi­ence.

His act is unequalled and he is cur­rently one of South Africa’s most in demand entertainers.

A fresh twist on jazz from an award win­ning jazz singer and song­writer together with a bevy of South Africa’s finest instru­men­tal­ists. Join Melanie Scholtz (Stan­dard Bank Young Artist 2010) as she pre­pares to unveil some of her new mate­r­ial at the Alexan­der Upstairs. Fea­tur­ing a new sound with Bokani Dyer (Stan­dard Bank Young Artist 2011) on piano, Ben­jamin Jephta (bass), Mar­lon Wit­booi (drums) and Jitsvinger (Hip hop artist).

“They slipped briskly into an inti­macy from which they never recov­ered.”
- Scott . F .Fitzger­ald
 
Lit­tle Space Between.
 
A series of Impro­vised moments that will explore rela­tion­ships through the per­sonal con­nec­tion we each have with love, sex and Inti­macy.  A group of expe­ri­enced Impro­vis­ers will be tak­ing a leap of faith into the deep and com­plex world of Inti­mate rela­tion­ships. Some that may involve phys­i­cal and sex­ual attrac­tion as well as lik­ing, belong­ing, lov­ing, a need to be cared for and good old fash­ioned romance.

Warn­ing: This show is com­pletely impro­vised and there­fore we can­not deter­mine what the out­come will be, but hope­fully we will explore com­edy, tragedy and the sur­real. Any­thing is possible!

The Great Gupta Ball is a live musi­cal, film and dance extrav­a­ganza where Bol­ly­wood meets the lush trim­mings of ‘The Great Gatsby’. Head­lined by ‘Shades of Kwaai’ artist Umlilo, it fea­tures some of Cape Town’s most elec­tri­fy­ing new acts. Audi­ences are advised to dress up in their most lush Bol­ly­wood and Roar­ing 20’s inspired out­fits and indulge in some show­stop­ping mash-ups of orginal South African music.

An(T)oniem tells the story of two peo­ple who are phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally trapped in their bed­rooms: a young woman, crip­pled by self-doubt and inse­cu­ri­ties, who feels like she has an extra­or­di­nary gift for love but no one to lav­ish it on; and a young man who feels pres­sur­ized by the expec­ta­tions of his fam­ily, reli­gion and Afrikaans cul­ture. Both of them decide to try their luck at find­ing some­one online..and it won’t be long before they find each other.

An(T)oniem is an “anti-romantic” com­edy incor­po­rat­ing themes of iden­tity, belong­ing, sex­u­al­ity, romance and nos­tal­gia; explor­ing the depths of human des­per­a­tion and long­ing as seen from behind the anonymity of a com­puter screen…and the darkly funny deprav­ity of our char­ac­ters once they meet each other in the “real” world.

Eliezer is the solo project of Cape Town musi­cian Lance Her­man. Musi­cally it explores min­i­mal folk (nylon-string gui­tar and vocals) with orig­i­nal songs express­ing a cer­tain roman­tic, melan­cholic yearn­ing; for place, love, self transformation.Drawing influ­ence from such artists as Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Jose Gon­za­lez — the per­for­mance is lucid, sin­cere, with a sense of set­ting out to sea.

World Pre­miere!

Gaë­tan Schmid’s (The Dog’s Bol­locks) brand new com­edy show is a hilar­i­ous trip into the mind of a most mis­un­der­stood species: Bel­gians!

Behind the façade of their clean cut lit­tle houses with their neat lit­tle front gar­den and patrolled by smirk­ing gar­den gnomes … some­thing obscurely wicked is lurk­ing … and some waf­fles.

Gaëtan’s lat­est pas­sion­ate call­ing is to share with you his wealth of lim­it­less and use­less knowl­edge; comic, fas­ci­nat­ing, quirky, absurd and sur­real stuff that maketh the Bel­gian and Bel­gium.

This is not a show about France.
 
Directed by Brent Palmer (Bench)

The return of the behind-the-scenes hit! One restau­rant, 1 actor, 36 Char­ac­ters, and over 200 char­ac­ter changes! This smash hit Off-Broadway com­edy is spiced up with a whole lot of famil­iar home­grown flair. Star­ring Pieter Bosch Botha and directed by Megan Fur­niss and writ­ten by award-winning Amer­i­can play­wright, Becky Mode.

This dev­as­tat­ingly funny one act fol­lows a day in the life of Sam Cooper, an out-of-work actor who mans the red-hot reser­va­tion line at Cape Town’s num­ber one restau­rant. Des­per­ate callers will stop at noth­ing, coer­cion, threats, bribes, and histri­on­ics, in their zeal to land a prime reservation.

**** Stars “it’s breath­tak­ing to watch and hugely entertaining…you hys­ter­i­cally laugh your way through all the antics…” — THE STAR, Dianne de Beer

Rat­ing: 9/10 “near-perfect one-man show…This is unre­lent­ing humour at its best…” — THE CITIZEN, Sibu­siso Mkwanazi

“Botha has got it just about perfect…an absolute delight.” — THE DAILY MAVERICK, Les­ley Stones

“Bosch se tre­f­sekere spel, tesame met ’n stewige skeut humor en patos, sorg vir boeiende teater.” - BEELD, Rudolf Stehle