Artscape Theatre Centre, Cape Town (2017)

The Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) was a South African theatre organisation based in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

, serving the former

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

. It was one of the four state-funded performing arts councils in the four former provinces of South Africa instituted in 1963.

History

In 1961, the National Theatre Organisation was disbanded and replaced by four provincial performing arts councils. In Cape Town, the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB) was instituted in 1962 with the aim to promote the performing arts in the

and South Africa. The arts councils received sufficient government subsidies to fund various art forms as well as the operational requirements of the theatre facilities. Staff could be taken into permanent employment. CAPAB opened the Nico Malan Theatre Centre on 19 May 1971, to be programmed and managed as a production house with four arts companies – orchestra, opera, ballet and drama. In line with the new South African the political dispensation and the concurrent changes, the complex was renamed the Artscape Theatre Centre in March 2001.

Demise

Since 1994, government policy changed dramatically. All performing arts boards were transformed to managers of playhouses and the various arts companies had to become independent. The CAPAB Drama Department staged its last production in May 1997 with a final performance of

David Mowat David John Mowat (born 20 February 1957) is a former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Warrington South, and was first elected at the 2010 general election. He was appointed as Parl ...

's ''The Guise'', a play which has the survival of the theatre as its theme. The new organisation, Artscape, was launched on 27 March 1999 to replace CAPAB and the Nico Malan Theatre Complex was renamed the Artscape Theatre Centre.

References

{{Reflist Arts councils Arts in South Africa Cultural organisations based in South Africa