   | birthplace   = Middelburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa | deathdate    =  | deathplace   =  | occupation   = playwright, novelist, actor, director, teacher | nationality  =  | ethnicity    = Afrikaner and English | citizenship  = South African and American | education    =  | alma_mater   =  | period       = 1956 – present | genre        = drama, novel, memoir | subject      =  | movement     =  | notableworks = ''Master Harold...and the Boys''''Blood Knot'' | spouse       = Sheila Fugard (1956 – present) | partner      =  | children     =  | relatives    =  | influences   =  | influenced   =  | awards       =  | signature    =  | website      =  | portaldisp   =  }} '''Athol Fugard''' (born 11 June 1932) is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel ''Tsotsi'', directed by Gavin Hood.  He is an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting, and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego.  For academic year 2000–2001, he was the IU Class of 1963 Wells Scholar Professor at Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana. (RealAudio clip of interview.)  The recipient of many awards, honors, and honorary degrees, including the 2005 Order of Ikhamanga in Silver &quot;for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre&quot; from the government of South Africa, he is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  == Personal history == Athol Fugard was born as '''Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard''', in Middelburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa, on 11 June 1932, to Irish and Afrikaner parents; his mother, Elizabeth Magdalena (née Potgieter), an Afrikaner, operated first a general store and then a lodging house; his father, Harold, was a disabled former jazz pianist of Irish, English and French Huguenot descent.Fisher gives Fugard's full birth name as &quot;Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard&quot;, spelling Fugard's middle name as ''Lanigan'', following Dennis Walder, ''Athol Fugard'', Writers and Their Work (Tavistock: Northcote House in association with the British Council, 2003).  It is spelled as ''Lannigan'' in Athol Fugard, ''Notebooks 1960-1977'' (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004)  and in Stephen Gray's ''Athol Fugard'' (Johannesburg and New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982)  and many other publications.  The former spelling (single ''n'') seems more authoritative, however, as it is also used by Marianne McDonald, a close UCSD colleague and friend of Fugard, in [ &quot;A Gift for His Seventieth Birthday: Athol Fugard's ''Sorrows and Rejoicings''&quot;], Department of Theatre and Dance, University of California, San Diego, rpt. from ''TheatreForum'' 21 (Summer/Fall 2002); in Fugard's National Orders Award  (27 September 2005) from the government of South Africa, presented to &quot;Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard (1932 –)&quot;; and in his &quot;Full Profile&quot; in ''Who's Who of Southern Africa'' (2007).  In 1935, his family moved to Port Elizabeth. (Google Books limited preview.)   In 1938, he began attending primary school at Marist Brothers College, a private Catholic school founded by the Marist Brothers; after being awarded a scholarship, he enrolled at a local technical college for secondary education and then studied Philosophy and Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, but he dropped out of the university in 1953, a few months before final examinations. He left home, hitchhiked to North Africa with a friend, and then spent the next two years working in east Asia on a steamer ship, the SS Graigaur, where he began writing, an experience &quot;celebrated&quot; in his 1999 autobiographical play ''The Captain's Tiger: a memoir for the stage''. (Google Books limited preview.)  In September 1956, he married Sheila Meiring, a University of Cape Town Drama School student whom he had met the previous year.  Now known as Sheila Fugard, she is a novelist and poet. The Fugards' daughter, Lisa Fugard, is also a novelist.  The Fugards moved to Johannesburg in 1958, where he worked as a clerk in a Native Commissioners' Court, which &quot;made him keenly aware of the injustices of apartheid.&quot;  The political impetus of Fugard's plays brought him into conflict with the national government; to avoid prosecution, he had his plays produced and published outside South Africa. A former alcoholic, Athol Fugard has been teetotal since the early 1980s.  He and his wife live in San Diego, California, where he teaches as an adjunct professor of playwriting, acting, and directing in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and maintain a residence in South Africa. [''Times Topics'' menu includes link to UCSD YouTube clip of Athol Fugard's lecture, &quot;A Catholic Antigone: an episode in the life of Hildegard of Bingen&quot;, Eugene M. Burke C.S.P. Lectureship on Religion and Society, University of California, San Diego (UCSD).]  ==Career== ===Early period=== In 1958, Fugard organized &quot;a multiracial theatre for which he wrote, directed, and acted&quot;, writing and producing several plays for it, including ''No-Good Friday'' (1958) and ''Nongogo'' (1959), in which he and his colleague black South African actor Zakes Mokae performed.  After returning to Port Elizabeth in the early 1960s, Athol and Sheila Fugard started The Circle Players, which derives its name from their influential production of ''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'', by Bertolt Brecht. (Google Books.)  In 1961, in Johannesburg, Fugard and Mokae starred as the brothers Morris and Zachariah in the single-performance world première of Fugard's play ''The Blood Knot'' (revised and retitled ''Blood Knot'' in 1987), directed by Barney Simon.  In 1962, Fugard publicly supported the Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959–1994), an international boycott of South African theatres due to their segregated audiences, leading to government restrictions on him and surveillance of him and his theatre by the Secret Police, and leading him to have his plays published and produced outside South Africa.  Lucille Lortel produced ''The Blood Knot'' at the Cricket Theatre, Off Broadway, in New York City, in 1964, &quot;launch[ing]&quot; Fugard's &quot;American career.&quot;  ;The Serpent Players In the 1960s, Fugard formed the Serpent Players, whose name derives from their first venue, the former snake pit at the zoo, &quot;a group of black actors worker-players who earned their living as teachers, clerks, and industrial workers, and cannot thus be considered amateurs in the manner of leisured whites&quot;, developing and performing plays &quot;under surveillance of the Security Police.&quot; (Google Books limited preview.)  Their plays utilized minimalist sets and props improvised from whatever materials were available; often staged in black areas for a night, the cast would move on to the next venue, such as a dimly-lit church hall or community center, where the audience consisted of poor migrant labourers and the residents of hostels in the townships.  According to Kruger, the Serpent Players used Brecht's elucidation of gestic acting, dis-illusion, and social critique, as well as their own experience of the satiric comic routines of urban African vaudeville, to explore the theatrical force of Brecht's techniques, as well as the immediate political relevance of a play about land distribution.  Their work on the ''Caucasian Chalk Circle'' and, a year later, on ''Antigone'' led directly to the creation, in 1966, of what is still [2004] South Africa's most distinctive ''Lehrstück'' [learning play]: ''The Coat''.  Based on an incident at one of the many political trials involving the Serpent Players, ''The Coat'' dramatized the choices facing a woman whose husband, convicted of anti-apartheid political activity, left her only a coat and instructions to use it.  In ''The Coat'', Kruger observes, &quot;The participants were engaged not only in representing social relationships on stage but also on enacting and revising their own dealings with each other and with institutions of apartheid oppression from the law courts downward&quot;, and &quot;this engagement testified to the real power of Brecht's apparently utopian plan to abolish the separation of player and audience and to make of each player a 'statesman' or social actor.... Work on ''The Coat'' led indirectly to the Serpent Players' most famous and most Brechtian productions, ''Sizwe Bansi is Dead'' (1972) and ''The Island'' (1973).&quot;  Fugard developed these two plays for the Serpent Players in workshops, working extensively with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, publishing them in 1974 with his own play ''Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act'' (1972).  The authorities considered the title of ''The Island'', which alludes to Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was being held, too controversial, so Fugard and the Serpent Players used the alternative title ''The Hodoshe Span'' (''Hodoshe'' being slang for prison work gang).  These plays &quot;evinced a Brechtian attention to the demonstration of gest and social situations and encouraged audiences to analyze rather than merely applaud the action&quot;; for example, ''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'', which &quot;combined Brechtian critique and vaudevillian irony-–especially in Kani's virtuoso improvisation-–even provoked an African audience's critical interruption and interrogation of the action.&quot; While dramatizing frustrations in the lives of his audience members, the plays simultaneously drew them into the action and attempted to have them analyze the situations of the characters in Brechtian fashion, according to Kruger.  ''Blood Knot'' was filmed by the BBC Television in 1967, with Fugard's collaboration, starring the Jamaican actor, Charles Hyatt as Zachariah and Fugard himself as Morris, as in the original 1961 première in Johannesburg. Less pleased than Fugard, the South African government of B. J. Vorster confiscated Fugard's passport.Dennis Walder, [ &quot;Crossing Boundaries: The Genesis of the Township Plays&quot;], Special issue on Athol Fugard, ''Twentieth Century Literature'' (Winter 1993); rpt. ''findarticles.com''.  Accessed 4 Oct. 2008.  Four years later, in 1971, partially as the result of international protest on his behalf, the South African travel restrictions against Fugard eased, allowing him to fly to England again, in order to direct ''Boesman and Lena''.  ===Later period=== ''Master Harold...and the Boys'', written in 1982, incorporates &quot;strong autobiographical matter&quot;; nonetheless &quot;it is fiction, not memoir&quot;, as ''Cousins: A Memoir'' and some of Fugard's other works are subtitled. (Google Books limited preview.)  Fugard demonstrates that he opposes injustices committed by both the government and by its chief political opposition in his play ''My Children! My Africa!'', which attacks the ANC for deciding to boycott African schools, based on recognition of the damage that boycott would cause a generation of African pupils.  His post-apartheid plays, such as ''Valley Song'', ''The Captain's Tiger: a memoir for the stage'' and his latest play, ''Victory'' (2007), focus more on personal than political issues. [Theatre rev. of ''Victory'' at the Theatre Royal, Bath.]  The Fugard Theatre, in The District Six area of Cape Town, South Africa, opened with performances by the Isango Portobello theatre company in February 2010 and a new play written and directed by Athol Fugard, ''The Train Driver'', will play at the theatre in March 2010.  Fugard's plays are produced internationally, have won multiple awards, and several have been made into films, including among their actors Fugard himself.&quot;Filmography&quot; in . Accessed 3 Oct. 2008.  His film debut as a director occurred in 1992, when he co-directed the adaptation of his play ''The Road to Mecca'' with Peter Goldsmid, who also wrote the screenplay.  The film adaptation of his novel ''Tsotsi'' (Afrikaans for ''hoodlum''), written and directed by Gavin Hood, won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.  ==Plays== :(in chronological order of first production and/or publication)Fisher observes in the Fugard &quot;Biography&quot; section of ''Athol Fugard: Statements'' that South African writer and critic Stephen Gray classifies many of Fugard's dramatic works according to chronological periods of composition and similarities of style: &quot;Apprenticeship&quot; ([1956–]1957); &quot;Social Realism&quot; (1958–1961); &quot;Chamber Theatre&quot; (1961–1970); &quot;Improvised Theatre&quot; (1966–1973); and &quot;Poetic Symbolism&quot; (1975[–1990]). {| |valign=&quot;top&quot;| * ''Klaas and the Devil'' (1956) * ''The Cell'' (1957) * ''No-Good Friday'' (1958) * ''Nongogo'' (1959) * ''The Blood Knot'' (1961); later revised and entitled ''Blood Knot'' (1987) * ''Hello and Goodbye'' (1965) * ''The Coat'' (1966) * ''People Are Living There'' (1968) * ''The Last Bus'' (1969) * ''Boesman and Lena'' (1969) * ''Friday's Bread on Monday'' (1970) * ''Sizwe Bansi Is Dead'' (1972) (developed with John Kani, and Winston Ntshona in workshops) * ''The Island'' (1972) (developed with John Kani, and Winston Ntshona in workshops) * ''Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act'' (1972) * ''Dimetos'' (1975) * ''Orestes'' (1978) * ''A Lesson from Aloes'' (1978) |valign=&quot;top&quot;| * ''The Drummer'' (1980) * ''Master Harold...and the Boys'' (1982) * ''The Road to Mecca'' (1984) * ''A Place with the Pigs: a personal parable'' (1987) * ''My Children! My Africa!'' (1989) * ''My Life'' (1992) * ''Playland'' (1993) * ''Valley Song'' (1996) * ''The Captain's Tiger: a memoir for the stage'' (1997) * ''Sorrows and Rejoicings'' (2001) * ''Exits and Entrances'' (2004) * ''Booitjie and the Oubaas'' (2006) * ''Victory'' (2007) * ''Coming Home'' (2009) * ''Have you seen Us'' (2009) * ''The Train Driver'' (2010) |}  ==Bibliography== *''Statements: [Three Plays]''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1974. ISBN 0192113852 (10).  ISBN 9780192113856 (13).  ISBN 0192811703 (10).  ISBN 9780192811707 (13).  (Co-authored with John Kani and Winston Ntshona; see below.) * ''Three Port Elizabeth Plays'': Blood Knot; Hello and Goodbye; ''and'' Boesman and Lena.  Oxford and New York, 1974. ISBN 0192113666. * Sizwe Bansi Is Dead ''and'' The Island.  New York: Viking Press, 1976. ISBN 0670647845 * Dimetos ''and Two Early Plays''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1977. ISBN 0192113909. * Boesman and Lena ''and Other Plays''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1980. ISBN 0195701976. * ''Selected Plays of Fugard: Notes''.  Ed. Dennis Walder.  London: Longman, 1980. Beirut: York Press, 1980.  ISBN 0582781299. * ''Tsotsi: a novel''. New York: Random House, 1980. ISBN 9780394513843. * A Lesson from Aloes: ''A Play''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1981. * ''Marigolds in August''.  A. D. Donker, 1982. ISBN 086852008X. * ''Boesman and Lena''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1983. ISBN 0195703316. * ''People Are Living There''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1983. ISBN 0195703324. * ''Master Harold...and the Boys''.  New York and London: Penguin, 1984. ISBN 0140481877. * The Road to Mecca: ''A Play in Two Acts''.  London: Faber and Faber, 1985. ISBN 0571136915.  [Suggested by the life and work of Helen Martins of New Bethesda,  Eastern Cape, South Africa.] * ''Selected Plays''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1987.  ISBN 0192819291. [Includes: ''Master Harold...and the Boys''; ''Blood Knot'' (new version); ''Hello and Goodbye''; ''Boesman and Lena''.] * ''A Place with the Pigs: a personal parable''.  London: Faber and Faber, 1988. ISBN 0571151140. * My Children! My Africa! ''and Selected Shorter Plays''.  Ed. and introd., Stephen Gray.  Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1990. ISBN 1868141179. * Blood Knot ''and Other Plays''.  New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1991. ISBN 1559360194. * Playland ''and Other Worlds''.  Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1992. ISBN 1868142191. * ''The Township Plays''. Ed. and introd. Dennis Walder.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1993.  ISBN 0192829254 (10). ISBN 9780192829252 (13).  [Includes: ''No-good Friday'', ''Nongogo'', ''The Coat'', ''Sizwe Bansi Is Dead'', and ''The Island''.] * ''Cousins: A Memoir'',   Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1994.  ISBN 1868142787. * ''Hello and Goodbye''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1994. ISBN 0195710991. * ''Valley Song''.  London: Faber and Faber, 1996. ISBN 0571179088. * ''The Captain's Tiger: A Memoir for the Stage''.  Johannesburg: Witwatersrand UP, 1997. ISBN 1868143244. * ''Athol Fugard: Plays''.  London: Faber and Faber, 1998. ISBN 0571190936. * ''Interior Plays''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2000. ISBN 0192880357. * ''Port Elizabeth Plays''.  Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2000. ISBN 0192825291. * ''Sorrows and Rejoicings''.  New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2002. ISBN 1559362081. * ''Exits and Entrances''.  New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2004. ISBN 0822220415.  ;Co-authored with John Kani and Winston Ntshona * ''Statements: [Three Plays].'' 1974.  By Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona.  Rev. ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1978. ISBN 0192811703 (10).  ISBN 9780192811707 (13).  [&quot;Two workshop productions devised by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, and a new play&quot;; includes: ''Sizwe Bansi Is Dead'' and ''The Island'', and ''Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act''.]  ;Co-authored with Ross Devenish * ''The Guest: an episode in the life of Eugene Marais''.  By Athol Fugard and Ross Devenish.  Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977.  ISBN 0949937363.  (''Die besoeker: 'n episode in die lewe van Eugene Marais''.  Trans. into Afrikaans by Wilma Stockenstrom.  Craighall: A. D. Donker, 1977.  ISBN 0949937436.)  ==Filmography== ;Films adapted from Fugard's plays and novel * ''Boesman and Lena'' (1974), dir. Ross Devenish * ''Marigolds in August'' (1980), dir. Ross Devenish * ''Master Harold...and the Boys'' (1984), Television movie, dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, first broadcast on Showtime.  Accessed 3 Oct. 2008. * ''The Road to Mecca'' (1992), co-dir. by Fugard and Peter Goldsmid (screen adapt.) * ''Boesman and Lena'' (2000), dir. John Berry * ''Tsotsi'' (2005), screen adapt. and dir. Gavin Hood; 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film  ;Film roles * Boesman in ''Boesman and Lena'' (1974) * Eugene Marais in ''The Guest at Steenkampskraal'' (1977).  Accessed 4 Oct. 2008. * Professor Skridlov in ''Meetings with Remarkable Men'' (1979).  Accessed 3 Oct. 2008. * General Jan Smuts in ''Gandhi'' (1982) * Doctor Sundesval in ''The Killing Fields'' (1984) * Paulus Olifant in ''Marigolds in August'' (1984) * The Reverend Marius Byleveld in ''The Road to Mecca'' (1992)  == Selected awards and nominations == ;TheatreA list of Fugard's Broadway theatre award nominations may be found at the IBDB.  * Obie Award ** 1971 - Best Foreign Play - ''Boesman and Lena'' ('''winner''') * Tony Award ** 1975 - Best Play - ''Sizwe Banzi Is Dead'' / ''The Island'' - Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona ('''nomination''') ** 2011 - Special Tony Award Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre ('''winner''') * New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards ** 1981 - Best Play - ''A Lesson From Aloes'' ('''winner''') ** 1988 - Best Foreign Play - ''The Road to Mecca'' ('''winner''') * Evening Standard Award ** 1983 – Best Play – ''Master Harold...and the Boys'' ('''winner''') * Drama Desk Awards ** 1982 – ''Master Harold...and the Boys'' ('''winner''') * Lucille Lortel Awards ** 1992 – Outstanding Revival – ''Boesman and Lena'' ('''winner''') ** 1996 – Outstanding Body of Work ('''winner''') * The Audie Awards (Audio Publishers Association) ** 1999 - Theatrical Productions - ''The Road to Mecca'' ('''winner''') * Outer Critics Circle Award ** 2007 – Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play – ''Exits and Entrances'' ('''nomination''')  ;Honorary awards * Writers Guild of America, East Award ** 1986 - Evelyn F. Burkey Memorial Award - (along with Lloyd Richards) * National Orders Award (South Africa) ** 2005 – The Order of Ikhamanga in Silver - &quot;for his excellent contribution and achievements in the theatre&quot;  ;Honorary degrees  *Yale University, 1983 *Wittenberg University, 1992 *University of the Witwatersrand, 1993 *Brown University, 1995 *Princeton University, 1998  