The Playground

A play for young people and families

Rosa (Frances Simon) Photo: Robert Workman

…it floats on a haunting, echoing raft of traditional South African harmonies that make watching it a joyful experience as well as a thought-provoking one. Don’t miss it.

Time Out Critics’ Choice
– Pick of the Year 2004

Mama (Doreen Webster), Rosa(Frances Simon) Photo: Robert Workman

Rosa’s first steps into her new playground are fraught with more than just first-day nerves. It is South Africa in 1995, and the doors of Oranje School are open to black children for the first time. Mama’s dream is that Rosa leave the overcrowded school in the township and enter the same school as Hennie, the son of her white employers. But not everyone is happy about the new integration laws, least of all Hennie’s father, and Rosa is terrified…

Adapted from a short story in Out of Bounds, The Playground is set in a rural town in South Africa between 1989 and 2000.

Work on the play began at a wonderful PAL Playwrights Lab in 2000. The Playground was first performed at Polka Theatre, London from 23rd September to 31st October 2004, directed by Olusola Oyeleye and designed by Phil Newman.

Performance rights: 
Jessica Hare,
The Agency, 
24 Pottery Lane, 
London W11 4LZ
Email here.

Read about making The Playground here.

The Playground is published with Taxi and Green Man Flashing in New South African Plays.