Nathaniel Ramabulana is an award-winning South African actor, writer, director and theatre-maker whose career spans theatre, film and television. He holds an Honours degree in Dramatic Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand. His accolades include a Naledi Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Naledi Award for Best New South African Script for Hayani, and a SAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for Netflix’s Fatal Seduction. His screen credits include Blood Diamond, The Bang Bang Club and Fatal Seduction, while his broader practice includes writing, directing and arts development. Recognised as one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans, Nathaniel is committed to authentic African storytelling, arts education and creating meaningful opportunities for emerging creative talent.

Lizelle Pike is an award-winning South African stage, screen and voice actress known for her emotional depth and psychological insight. She graduated cum laude with a BA Honours in Drama from the University of Pretoria. Her lead performance in the feature film Musiek vir die Agtergrond earned her the Silwerskerm Award for Best Actress, with further screen credits including Pretville, Stuur Groete aan Mannetjies Roux and Bloedbroers. On stage, Lizelle has appeared in works ranging from Peter Shaffer’s Equus to the one-woman production Ingrid: ’n Vlam in die Sneeu, portraying poet Ingrid Jonker. Most recently, she played Krissie O’Brien in As die Tuig Skawe at the South African State Theatre. She also works as a media producer and youth arts educator.

André Lötter is a South African actor and theatre practitioner with almost two decades of experience across stage, television and film. He graduated from Tshwane University of Technology in 2008 with a National Diploma in Drama. His extensive theatre credits include Danny – The Champion of the World, The Jungle Book, Somewhere on the Border, Nobody Told Me, Pampelmoesmampoer and the Naledi Award-winning Sarajevo. Since 2023, he has also served as a judge and mentor for ATKV-Tienertoneel. On television, André has appeared in Binnelanders, Getroud met Rugby, Reyka and Diepe Waters, spent more than eight years on 7de Laan as Rickus Welman, and won a 2015 Royalty Soapie Award for Villa Rosa.

Francis Chouler is an award-winning South African actor, writer and director whose work spans theatre, film and television. He graduated cum laude from UCT’s Theatre and Performance department in 2010. He was most recently seen on stage in Sylvaine Strike’s Spring Awakening, for which he received a Naledi Award for Best Supporting Actor. Macbeth marks his fifth Maynardville Shakespeare, following Cardenio, The Taming of the Shrew, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Francis has appeared in more than 35 film and television productions, including The Crown, Invasive, Dam, Nêrens Noord-Kaap and Beter as Gister. He is currently developing his debut short film, Full Body.

Brent Palmer is a multiple award-winning South African actor, playwright and producer with an extensive career across theatre, film and television. In 2024 he won the Fleur du Cap Award for Best Actor for King George, followed by a Best Ensemble Fleur du Cap Award with the cast of Metamorphoses in 2025. His stage credits include Bench, The Father, A Steady Rain, The Kingmakers, Macbeth, The Dumb Waiter, The Tempest, Hamlet and Othello. He has also toured internationally in Janni Younge’s Hamlet and appeared in Lara Foot’s Othello in Abu Dhabi. Screen credits include Tali’s Wedding, Those Who Can’t, Our Girl and The Shakedown. Brent is also a public-speaking coach and runs Own Your Voice.

Tamzin Daniels is a Cape Town-based actor and theatre-maker who graduated from the University of Cape Town in 2021 with a BA in Theatre and Performance, specialising in bilingual Afrikaans and English acting. From 2023 to 2026 she was a member of the Baxter Theatre Centre’s resident Fires Burning Company. Her professional stage credits include Of Loss – Handle with Care, Othello, Trouble in Mind, Neighbourhood, Metamorphoses, An Unromantic Comedy, La Ronde, And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses and Stupid Fucking Bird. She was part of the ensemble of Metamorphoses, which won Best Performance by an Ensemble at the 60th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards. In 2026, Tamzin also served as Production and Marketing Manager for I Lord Hamlet, which premiered at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees.

Katlego Lebogang is an award-winning South African actor whose work spans theatre, film and television. She graduated with distinction from the University of Cape Town with a BA Honours in Theatre and Performance. Her international and local screen credits include Average Joe for Paramount+, Netflix’s Yoh! Christmas and Yoh! Bestie, White Lies, Spinners, Noughts + Crosses, Wounds and Law, Love & Betrayal. On stage, Katlego portrayed Letsatsi Letseka in Delela, earning a 2024 Fleur du Cap Theatre Award nomination for Best Lead Actress. In 2025, she received the NFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a further nomination for Best Lead Actress. Across her work, Katlego is committed to creating performances and stories that resonate beyond their immediate moment.

Katlego Chale is a South African actor, playwright, academic and lecturer whose work bridges performance, writing and education. He holds a PhD from the University of Pretoria and a Master’s degree from Tshwane University of Technology, and lectures in the University of the Western Cape’s English Department. He also chairs The Writers’ Lab, an NPO focused on playwriting, screenwriting and creative practice. His theatre credits include The Piano Lesson, The Brothers Size, Return of the Ancestors, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Metaphors and Best Friends Worst Enemies. Katlego received a 2023 Naledi Theatre Award nomination for Best Lead Actor for The Brothers Size and was previously nominated as part of the ensemble of Return of the Ancestors. He recently performed at The Market Theatre’s 50th Anniversary celebration.

Kensiwe Tshabalala is a South African performing artist and theatre-maker whose career spans Africa, Europe and the United States. She holds a Musical Theatre degree from Tshwane University of Technology and a Master’s degree in Acting for Film. Kensiwe performed Off-Broadway in New York for three years before establishing a professional dance career in Los Angeles, including appearances at Jazz at Lincoln Center. In South Africa, her stage credits include Vanya & Sonya & Masha & Spike, Adventures in Pantoland, Peter Pan, the eight-time Naledi Award-winning Hlakanyana and My Fair Lady. Her screen work includes Orange Is the New Black and Generations: The Legacy. She has also co-directed the original musical On the List and toured Under the Shade of a Tree I Sat and Wept internationally.

Mateo Komlosy is a South African actor and writer from Hillcrest, KwaZulu-Natal. He graduated cum laude from Stellenbosch University in 2025 with a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies and is completing an Honours degree in scriptwriting under Malan Steyn. His university stage credits include Lurch in The Addams Family Musical, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Al in Fok Jou in My Spaceship and Johannes Schmidt in Baal. As a writer-performer, Mateo co-created Carrion Communion, winner of Best Text and Best Design at the 2026 Première Theatre Festival, and Poppycock, which received Best Ensemble and a Best Text nomination. He also co-created The Second Coming, which debuted at Woordfees in 2026. Macbeth marks his debut with the Maynardville company.

Natalie Robbie is an award-winning South African actress and voice artist who trained at The Oxford School of Drama. She began her theatre career in the United Kingdom, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Almeida Theatre and The Yard Theatre before returning to South Africa. Her screen credits include Season’s Feelings, Catch Me a Killer, Justice Served, Suidooster, Raised by Wolves, Lincoln and FDR, Nêrens, Noord-Kaap, The Fix and Help. As a voice artist, Natalie works across commercials, documentaries, animation, video games and audiobooks. Her stage credits include A Christmas Carol, Noises Off and Orpheus McAdoo. She received a Naledi Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for Spring Awakening and is also a member of the professional improvisation troupe, The Long Shots.

Jake Maisel is an award-winning South African actor and producer with more than a decade of experience across stage and screen. His screen credits include Netflix’s Justice Served and No One Saw Us Leave, the Starz series Black Sails and kykNET’s Die Toring. A passionate Shakespearean performer, Jake is a co-founder of Baked Shakespeare, an award-winning theatre company known for its energetic and unconventional approach to the classics. In 2023, he appeared in the company’s As You Like It, which received an Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival, and has since toured internationally with the company, including to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. More recently, Jake performed in Chicken, And. at the Homecoming Centre in Cape Town and produced I Can’t Speak for Freddy, directed by Morné Visser.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is widely regarded as one of the greatest playwrights in the English language. His works explore enduring themes of love, ambition, power, betrayal and the complexities of human nature. Among his most celebrated tragedies are Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. Written in the early seventeenth century, Macbeth examines the destructive consequences of ambition and the moral cost of power, remaining one of Shakespeare’s most frequently performed and reimagined plays.

Lesedi Job is an award-winning South African theatre director, actress and voiceover artist whose work explores the complexities of human experience. She began her directing career in 2016 while developing a new musical in Toronto, where she received mentorship from acclaimed British director Adrian Noble.

Her directorial debut, Mike van Graan’s When Swallows Cry (2017), earned her the Naledi Theatre Award for Best Director, with the production subsequently presented at the African Union Conference in Ethiopia, Geneva Peace Week and the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development.

Her directing credits include Itsoseng, Helen of Troyeville, Meet Me at Dawn, Congo: The Trial of King Leopold II, featuring Dr John Kani, Brutal Legacy and Kill Move Paradise. She also served as resident director on the South African musical Calling Us Home.

Job has mentored emerging theatre directors through an international initiative involving Sundance Theatre in New York. Her honours include the Sophie Mgcina Emerging Voice Award and the Mbokodo Women in Arts Award for Theatre.

Nadine Minnaar is a South African production designer, scenographer and theatre practitioner whose work spans theatre, opera, musical theatre, television and immersive environments. Her approach to design centres on spatial storytelling, using sets and performance environments to deepen the audience’s connection with a production.

Her recent work includes Aida for Cape Town Opera at Artscape, alongside productions such as Mirror Mirror, Automaton(tik) and Memories at the University of Pretoria. Her broader scenic portfolio includes major musicals such as Mamma Mia!, Kinky Boots and West Side Story, as well as television productions including Egoli, Celebrity Game Night and The Bachelor South Africa.

Through her company, Scene Visual Productions, she designs and fabricates sets, props and immersive environments for theatre, television and live events.

Minnaar is also involved in scenography and production at the University of Pretoria, where she mentors emerging designers. Her ongoing research examines scenography as installation, exploring how physical spaces, audience relationships and visual dramaturgy can become active elements of storytelling.

Wessel Odendaal is a South African composer, arranger, musical director and pianist whose work spans original theatre scores and international musical theatre productions. His approach draws on his experience as both a composer and performing musician, bringing musical storytelling into dialogue with live theatrical performance.

His original compositions include The Little Prince, The Jungle Book, Hamlet, The Tempest, The Mystery of Irma Vep and Star+Crossed. His score for Star+Crossed earned him a 2023 Fleur du Cap Theatre Award nomination for Best New Score.

Alongside his composition work, Odendaal has contributed to major international musical theatre productions, with credits including The Lion King, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Jersey Boys. His repertoire ranges from original works developed for South African stages to large-scale productions of established musicals.

He holds a BMus degree, cum laude, from the University of Pretoria and serves on the Maynardville executive team. For Macbeth, he returns to Shakespeare as composer, building on his previous work on Hamlet and The Tempest.

Oliver Hauser is an award-winning South African lighting designer whose work spans drama, opera, musical theatre, dance, television and contemporary performance. Known for his ability to create atmosphere through light, he has designed productions presented in cities including Barcelona, Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Beijing, Lagos and New York.

His Shakespeare credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest and Twelfth Night, presented as part of recent Maynardville seasons. His wider dramatic repertoire includes Tartuffe, The Crucible, Metamorphosis, Boesman and Lena, The Coloured Museum and Bopha!

In opera and dance, his credits include Aida, Tosca, Lucia di Lammermoor, Nkoli: The Vogue Opera and Gregory Maqoma’s Cion. His musical theatre work includes Rock of Ages, Avenue Q, The Buddy Holly Story and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

Hauser holds an Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering and a National Diploma in Performing Arts Technology, combining technical expertise with an extensive creative practice across performance genres.

David Classen is a South African sound designer and systems technician with more than 16 years of experience working on theatrical productions and live events, both locally and internationally. His career spans sound design, audio systems and the technical management of major musical theatre productions.

He has served as Head of Audio on productions including West Side Story, Funny Girl, King Kong and Kinky Boots at the Fugard Theatre, as well as The Sound of Music and Buddy: The Musical for Pieter Toerien Productions.

His sound design credits include Shakespeare in Love, Langarm, Life of Michael K, Finding the Light, Dear Evan Hansen and Pretty Woman: The Musical. He co-designed District Six – Kanala with Aki Khan and was associate sound designer on The Rocky Horror Show, which received a Naledi Theatre Award for Best Sound Design. Classen subsequently won the same award for Spring Awakening.

Beyond theatre, he has managed audio for festivals including Woordfees, KKNK, Suidoosterfees and Rocking the Daisies.

Arwen Weich is a South African performer and emerging theatre practitioner whose experience spans dance, acting, singing, choreography and stage management. She graduated from the Waterfront Theatre School in 2024, having completed four years of vocal and acting training alongside advanced studies in ballet, tap, modern and contemporary dance.

During her training, she appeared in numerous dance productions and the original musical The Boddy at Tudor. In 2024, she stage managed the South African premiere of Heathers: The Musical, an experience that sparked her growing interest in the technical and backstage aspects of theatre.

Weich has also worked internationally as a dance captain and Kids Club team leader at a resort in Greece. Her screen work includes two self-created short films, Grief and Caged, which she directed, filmed and performed in.

She has been part of the Maynardville team in both 2025 and 2026, assisting with front-of-house operations and backstage crew duties. As assistant stage manager on Macbeth, she continues to develop her technical theatre experience.

Alyssa van der Schyff is a South African theatre practitioner and production manager with more than 15 years of experience across performance, stage management and live entertainment. Her career spans musical theatre, children’s theatre, touring productions and large-scale event management.

She began her training at Stageworx Performing Arts School after which she completed a Diploma in Musical Theatre at Oakfields College, where she was named Top Musical Theatre Student (2016). As a performer, Alyssa appeared in productions of Tiger Bay – The Musical, The Sound of Music Asia & SA Tours, My Favourite Things, and children’s theatre at the National Children’s Theatre, including Goggas and Mr Hare Meets Mr Mandela.

Her journey soon shifted to stage management, working on acclaimed productions including Into the Woods, Rock of Ages, The Rocky Horror Show and The Producers. She made her directorial debut in 2020 with A Christmas Carol and later assisted on Peter and The Wolf.

Beyond theatre, Alyssa co-founded Plug In Theatre, launched The Blu Piano Social Club, and worked as a project manager in corporate events, managing over 100 events, including the Volvo Electric Truck Launch and Huawei’s Eco-Connect Africa.

Jaco van Rensburg is a South African theatre producer and arts entrepreneur whose work spans musical theatre, classical drama, original South African productions and festival programming.

As co-founder and Executive Producer of VR Theatrical, he has produced acclaimed South African productions of international musicals including Avenue Q, Rock of Ages and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, alongside original works and productions for younger audiences. His work has received multiple nominations for Naledi and Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards.

Since 2023, Van Rensburg has led the revitalisation of the Maynardville Open-Air Festival, developing its artistic programme while strengthening its position as one of South Africa’s most significant outdoor theatre traditions. Under his leadership, the festival has expanded beyond its annual Shakespeare production to encompass orchestral music, opera, ballet, jazz and other live performances, alongside educational initiatives and professional development opportunities for emerging theatre practitioners.

His producing practice is driven by a commitment to artistic excellence, audience development and creating sustainable opportunities for South African theatre-makers.