Samantha Carlisle - Writer & Performer

Dara Beth - Director

Stage Manager - Cailyb Prinsloo

Voice Overs - Kamogelo Mhlantla

Produced by Spark in the Dark

Writer & Performer - Samantha Carlisle

Samantha Carlisle wants to be a Love Island contestant but until that happens she is a full-time actress, writer, and producer. While she was born in Makhanda, her work has travelled to places with far fewer potholes and maybe also fewer donkeys (she doesn’t currently have the research to back up that claim).

She played the role of Renee in Some Mothers’ Sons, the film adaptation of Mike van Graan’s renowned play by the same name, which travelled to film festivals all over Africa, America, the UK, and Europe. She then went on to play Amelia in Joanna Evans’ hit play The Year of the Bicycle, a piece she produced alongside her co-star Kamogelo Mhlantla. Her television credits include a role in the Afrikaans TV series Wyfie, despite her inability to praat die taal. At last year's National Arts Festival she acted alongside Shannon Hendry in Cailyb Prinsloo's production What Do You Think The Birds Are Doing and also performed her debut one-woman show Messy, which earned her a Standard Bank Ovation Award.

When she is not partaking in the anxiety-inducing, debilitating, Sisyphean task of writing and performing her solo show Messy, she can be found working on a myriad of projects that aim to rejuvenate the South African theatre scene and make it more accessible for women and gender-diverse theatre-makers. She works as a producer and marketing manager for Spark in the Dark, and also oversees daily operations and communications for Kgokelo, a sustainable network for women and gender-diverse playwrights in South Africa.

Director - Dara Beth

Dara Beth is an angry Jewish queer feminist and award-winning director and writer. Their main focus is to provide an audience with a language and vocabulary to explore new worlds. Through tales that are raunchy, witty, tongue-in-cheek, high-energy, bubblegum pop, biting, quirky, honest, unflinching, and occasionally self-indulgent and overly romantic, Dara aims to evoke a sense of joy, inspire connections, and instigate pleasurable introspection.

Dara has written and staged multiple original works for various festivals and theatres such as Nasty Womxn, Just A Song And A Dance, Lolly, and all my ex-lovers are dead to name a few. Dara has been nominated for Fleur du Cap, BroadwayWorld, and Kanna awards. When not producing their own work, Dara often works as a facilitator, director, designer, and producer.

In 2023, Dara was awarded a grant from South Africa’s National Arts Council with which they founded Kgokelo, the South African Women and Gender-Diverse Playwrights Network and Database. In 2024, Dara joined forces with Spark in the Dark–a South African production company dedicated to making space and opportunities for artists to share their voices.

In 2025, Dara is set to direct their first feature film and a host of new theatre productions.

Stage Manager - Cailyb Prinsloo

Cailyb Prinsloo is a writer, director, and producer grown on Eastern Cape soil and seeking fortune in Cape Town. She holds a Masters degree in writing for performance, and is a proud recipient of a Silver Standard Bank Ovation award for the 2022 run of What Do You Think the Birds are Doing?. Cailyb enjoys making works that meditate on themes of hope and fear, making people laugh, and a good cup of coffee.