From Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg, ASTEP Creating Memories

JOHANNESBURG, S. Africa - This past July (2007), ASTEP, in collaboration with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (www.broadwaycares.org) and Ubuntu Education Fund (www.ubuntufund.org), shared an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience with children from our collaborative South Africa initiative. The ASTEP 2007 team: Abby Gerdts, Kristen Knuston, Faylotte Crayton, Frankie Alvarez, Mary Ellen Beaudreau, Phillip McAdoo and Stefani Rae traveled with 47 children who Ubuntu hand-selected from the townships in Port Elizabeth on a 3-day bus tour to visit Johannesburg for an exciting arts-awareness trip.

This special group of students was chosen because they are some of the most vulnerable children living in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Many have been orphaned by HIV and/or have been diagnosed with HIV.

While in Johannesburg, these children, many of whom had never been outside their small, neighboring villages, participated in activities that significantly broadened their horizons and elevated their understanding of art and the history of their culture and heritage. ASTEP and BC/EFA arranged for them to attend a performance of The Lion King at the recently renovated Montecasino Theater and then meet some of the performers for an intimate dinner at a cast member’s home.

The children were also able to see a showing of the latest Athol Fugard play Victory, a drama about the plight of the dispossessed, the responsibilities of the privileged, and the humanity of both, at the renowned Market Theater.

Mary-Mitchell Campbell and the ASTEP team and Anthony Rapp (original cast of RENT) collaborated and also arranged for them to sit in on a rehearsal of the show RENT in preparation for the opening of the musical in Johannesburg. After these theater experiences the children then toured the Apartheid Museum to see its exhibitions dedicated to the saga of the nation’s resistance, courage, and fortitude during its years of oppression.

The staff, volunteers and performing artists of ASTEP and Ubuntu also benefited from this experience by participating in this rare cross-cultural exchange of conversation, craft, and performance.