As a set designer, I love the magic and rigour of community theatre which requires me to find interesting theatrical solutions that suit the script, as well as the specific limits of the venue and budget.  There was the added challenge of having 3 plays perform in one venue, upon one stage – requiring me to design the set components to be (relatively) easily rotated to allow for the set-up of a new play, every day.  Lastly, there was the exciting opportunity to collaborate with a creative team who wanted to tell stories about the lives of people in Harare, the capital city of a country with a difficult and charged history.

For this project I built a model box of the Jason Mphepo Little Theatre stage and developed a series of set design layouts for each play.  For me the model box, as a working tool for the set designer and creative team, is the most efficient way to communicate design ideas and work through the playing space requirements – from allocating entrances and exits, to placement of specific locations, height and size of backdrops, look and feel, lighting requirements, sequence of events, character and spacial development, metaphor etc…). 

During this time I worked alongside Zacharaha Magasa, a visual artist and sculptor living in Harare, who had been appointed as the assistant set designer and set builder for this project.  My job was to support Zacharaha in the realisation and installation of each of the set components, as well as to share some of the conceptual aspects of, and tools for designing for live performance.      

Awards:  The Africa Voices Now festival plays received 6 NAMA nominations in 2026, and won Outstanding Playwright (Tatenda Mutyambizi for These Humans are Sick) and Outstanding Director  (Leonard Matsa for Can We Talk?)