Writer, creator & performer: Sophie Joans

Director: Aldo Brincat

Composer: Ryan Stopforth

Sophie Joans - Creator/Performer

Sophie Joans is a clown, improviser, comedian, puppeteer, actor and playwright. She studied theatre at UCT and Wits, and completed courses in Clowning at RADA (London) with Peta Lily, Stand-Up Comedy at The Comedy Cellar (New York) and Solo Storytelling with Jess Mitolo from Second City (Toronto).
Her previous theatre works include: two-hander The Flower Hunters (Standard Bank Ovation Award 2021), puppet show Do You Dream In Colour, Winner of Zabalaza Festival’s Most Innovative Play 2018) and Ka-Boom!, a puppet show for young audiences that was selected for UNIMA’s Incubation Programme. Her debut solo play, ÎLE (directed by Rob Van Vuuren), was a roaring success across South Africa after winning The Gold Standard Bank Ovation at the National Arts Festival 2022, and went on to tour the country and the UK (Bitesize Fest London, EdFringe 2023). She played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Maynardville Open Air Theatre 2023. She also toured to Berlin in 2023 to the Pierre Boulez Saal in a puppet staging of Handel’s opera, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. Her new play, Dog Rose (directed by Jemma Kahn, starring Joans alongside Anthea Thompson), was selected for the Artscape’s New Voices Programme in 2022 and the Arena Programme of the National Arts Festival 2023, and comes to the Baxter in May. 
Sophie founded Spark in the Dark Productions, a theatre company dedicated to creating more spaces to play and tell stories. They host regular workshops on everything from writing to clowning, as well as new writing showcases, Play Things, and storytelling evening, Raunchy Renditions.
When she’s not making theatre or producing shows, Sophie loves teaching. She teaches Improv at LAMTA and directs OY! Youth Theatre Company.

Aldo Brincat - Director

Brincat’s primary career in the performing arts, was founded under the tutelage of the legendary Jacques Le Coq in Paris in the late 80’s, after which, Brincat toured Scandinavia and Russia as a freelance ballet dancer. Upon his return to South Africa, Brincat established Brincat Productions, an ad-hoc theatre company which focused on original, socio-political work, community theatre initiatives, and site-specific activations. During this time, Brincat received an invitation to perform for His Excellency, Nelson Mandela, on his birthday in 1997; and an invitation to showcase his environmental theatre work, Woza Waste Water, at the World Bank in Washington D.C., in 2000. In 2018, Brincat was commissioned to write a theatre piece, Light, for Ian Khama to celebrate his accession to the Presidency of Botswana. Brincat has been nominated for, and won, several theatre and community initiative awards, and was voted by the Mail & Guardian (SA), as among The Top Five Stage Performers of the Decade, 1999 – 2010. Brincat’s theatre career served as the foundation for his recent expansion and immersion into the visual arts. In 2018, his epic photography exhibition, Foreign Nationals, was invited to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS, at the University of London. Brincat has since completed his postgraduate degree in Fine Art at UCT’s Michaelis School of Fine Art (with a Distinction), and a Master’s in Visual Arts at Stellenbosch University (Cum Laude). To date, he has had multiple solo visual art exhibitions in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, England, India, and recently, Sweden. His solo performance, The Moon Looks Delicious From Here, won The Special Jury Award at the recent Bitesize Theatre Festival, at Riverside Studios, London.