When a young boy is tasked with holding up the world, he faces the scary (but rewarding) prospect of growing up. He learns that being alone doesn’t mean being strong, being helped doesn’t mean being selfish, and bravery is about being open to imagination and friendship. Join us on an exciting adventure full of dancing with the moon, playing with the stars, and very big birds.
This play is fun, imaginative, immersive (in a covid-conscious kind of way), visually appealing, and thought-provoking. Also, there’s a penguin.
More information can be found on @how.to.hold on both Facebook and Instagram
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Starring James Stoffberg
Written and directed by Juliette Rose-Innes
Artistic direction by Nancy Rademeyer
Created with Timothy Stadler (who originated the role)
Promotional art by Caitlin Goodwin
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Juliette Rose-Innes is a performance maker, writer, director, and UCT Theatre & Performance graduate. In 2017, she was a finalist in the Scribe Scriptwriting Competition, and has previously been published in The Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology (2018), Good Housekeeping Magazine SA (2017), and English Alive (2016 & 2017). She has been working on “How to Hold the World” since 2020 – with performances at The Drama Factory, The Cape Town Museum of Childhood, Jungle Theatre’s African Storytelling Festival, various schools, and in collaboration with ASSITEJ. She is excited to be giving it new life with James, the second performer to take on the show. Juliette has also just finished directing a sold-out run of Baked Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”.
James is a 23-year-old, professionally trained, actor and performance artist who has graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre and Performance from UCT. He has always been drawn to expressing himself, leaning towards the arts from an early age. He has played supporting and lead roles in all theatre productions that he has been a part of, including “Like Tjips on a Gatsby” (2013), UCT’s rendition of “Kinnes” (2019), and “Theatre is Dead, Long Live Theatre: A Documentary Theatre Project” (2021), as well as a variety of roles in student films, and smaller roles in larger film productions such as the acclaimed feature film “Barakat” (2020) directed by Amy Jephta. Most recently, he was a part of the theatre company Baked Shakespeare, cast in the role of Orsino in their version of the classic Shakespearean comedy “Twelfth Night”.