Mbongeni Ngema

Mbongeni Ngema was born on 10 May 1955 in Verulam, Natal, near Durban. He was the third of seven children. His father, Zwelikhethabantu Ngema, was a policeman originally from the village of eNhlwathi in kwaHlabisa, stationed in Verulam. At the time, Verulam was mostly Indian, though many Black residents lived there too. After the Group Areas Act of 1950 reclassified the area for Indians only, Black Africans were forced out. Ngema and his siblings were sent to live with their grandfather in kwaHlabisa, where they grew up in a rural setting, rising early to tend livestock before attending school through Standard Six. He later moved back to Verulam and then to Durban for high school, attending Vukuzakhe High School in Umlazi. He dropped out in his final year and began playing music in local bands, teaching himself guitar after being inspired by his father.

Ngema moved to Johannesburg and initially worked in a fertilizer factory. There, he played guitar for a workers' production and later filled in for an ill actor. He joined Gibson Kente’s theatre company as a singer and trainee actor, where he was introduced to the work of Stanislavski, Peter Brook, and Jerzy Grotowski. He acted in local productions during the 1970s before becoming a playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He gained widespread recognition in the 1980s after co-writing the comedy-drama *Woza Albert!* with Percy Mtwa (premiered 1981, toured the U.S. in 1984) and the multi-award-winning musical *Sarafina!* (premiered 1988). His work was known for capturing the spirit of Black South Africans under apartheid.

Ngema founded his own theatre company, Committed Artists, where he trained young men with no acting experience. In 1983, he wrote and directed the prison musical *Asinamali*, based on a famous rent strike in a Durban township. Shortly after its first performance in South Africa, police raided the production and arrested the actors. The show later premiered in New York City at the Roger Furman Theatre and was nominated for a Tony Award. It has been staged worldwide, including in Australia, with a 2024 production planned for South Africa’s National Arts Festival. A film version, co-written and directed by Ngema (who also starred as Comrade Washington), was released in 2017.

*Sarafina!*, set during the 1976 Soweto uprising, earned five Tony Award nominations and a Grammy nomination. It won 11 NAACP Image Awards, ran for two years on Broadway, and toured the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Japan. It was later adapted into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo, and Miriam Makeba. In 1990, *Township Fever*, about a major workers’ strike, was a success and staged in the U.S. after a run at the Market Theatre. That same year, Ngema co-wrote (with Duma ka Ndlovu) and directed his first American work, *Sheila’s Day*, produced by the Crossroads Theatre Company.

Ngema worked as a vocal arranger for Disney’s *The Lion King* (1994), earning a multi-platinum award for sales over 6 million copies. Also in 1994, he co-wrote the song “African Solution” with Mfiliseni Magubane for the National Peace Committee; all proceeds went to assist families affected by violence, and the song earned gold and platinum discs. In 1995, he created *Mama*, a musical about Soweto gangsters, produced by The Playhouse Company and toured in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. That year, he also presented *The Best of Mbongeni Ngema* at The Playhouse, releasing a CD and video of the performance. In 1995, he created *Sarafina II*, a musical addressing the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, which debuted in early 1996.

In 1997, Ngema composed and produced his solo album *Woza My Fohloza*, which he toured across South Africa. He wrote and composed *Maria–Maria*, choreographing and directing a production that premiered in Wiesbaden before touring Germany and Austria and opening at The Playhouse. That same year, he was appointed a visiting lecturer at the University of Zululand to teach his technique, and produced the first CD released by the university’s music department. In 1998, he was inducted into the New York “Walk of Fame” in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre. In 2001, during the African Renaissance festival, his name was engraved on the entrance of Durban’s City Hall alongside Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Miriam Makeba, and other liberation heroes. The City of Durban commissioned him to compose a song for the new millennium in 2000. In 2003, he was appointed artistic director for the Cricket World Cup. His play *The House of Shaka* (2005), inspired by the life of King Goodwill Zwelithini, was well received in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. A revival of *Sarafina!* was staged as part of the “10 Years of Democracy” celebrations in 2004. After a Nigerian production company saw *House of Shaka*, the play was staged in Nigeria in December 2005, running for a week in Lagos and a week in Abuja.

Ngema died in a car accident on 27 December 2023.