About Me
Mike van Graan is an award-winning playwright with 39 plays under his belt. His most recent satirical one-hander - MY FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS - won the performer, Kim Blanche Adonis, the Toyota US Woordfees Best Solo Award (October 2023) and the Best Solo Performance award at the inaugural Independent Theatre Awards (February 2024) where it also won the Best New Script award. MY FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS was awarded a Standard Bank Bronze Ovation Award at the 2024 National Arts Festival. It was performed 149 times around the country. In 2024, Mike developed two new scripts, ABRAHAM'S PROMISES which focuses on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and TO LIFE, WITH LOVE, a one-person piece that addresses themes to do with ageing. In addition to writing plays, Mike has extensive experience in cultural policy, building artists' networks both locally and across the African continent, and in advocacy. He has served as the Secretary General of Arterial Network, as the Director of the African Arts Institute and the Coordinator of the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation. In May 2024, he completed a 3-month writer's residency at the University of the Free State where he wrote a play, THE GOOD WHITE, set against the backdrop of the Rhodes/Fees Must Fall campaigns. He also used the time to update his 2014 script, RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS to 2024, the production of which was done with Bloemfontein-based actors and which had a short run at The Wave Theatre in Cape Town. Mike is currently concentrating on building a sustainable theatre practice as a writer/producer while also engaged in activities related to the Palestinian Arts and Culture Solidarity Collective (PACSOC), an informal network that seeks to support the Palestinian creative sector at this time when Palestinians as a whole are facing the most brutal existential assault by Israel and its liberal democracy enablers.
