About Feda
The very best Drama Departments of High schools around Johannesburg enter FEDA each year.
2024 is our 20th year!
” The future of our nation depends on our ability to create and be creative. During the coming decades our most important national resources will be human resources. If our nation is to continue to meet the challenges of the future, today’s schools need to develop creative leaders”
KELLY POLLOCK
About
The very best Drama Departments of High schools around Johannesburg enter each year. This is the 20th year we have held it. The Festival was launched because there are many outstanding High School Drama Departments who did not have a platform to showcase their work. . Dramatic Arts is the fastest growing subject in Education and is a Higher Grade subject. The standard of work at FEDA is incredibly high. Our trophies are hand made by a wire art expert. His name is John Mkwane and he works on the corner of Oxford and Rudd road. The winner’s prize is to showcase their work at Redfest and the St Johns Arts Festival in June. The festival is run by Phillipa Sandilands and Janet Baylis. Certificates and nominations are given to the schools after the festival. Check out the Feda festival Facebook page for more information.
Our Purpose
The true purpose of arts education is not necessarily to create more professional dancers or actors. It is to create more complete human beings who are critical thinkers who have curious minds and who can lead productive lives.
From “Performing Together” at The John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts.
Our Mission
Our mission statement is to give young people a theatrical platform where they can voice their feelings about the world they live in. These opinions are often controversial, provocative, brave and challenging, demonstrating the moral outrage of the youth in our country today.
FEDA is a one act play festival for High School students held every year in Johannesburg in May and adjudicated by professional theatre practitioners. The primary market is High School students and teachers and parents.
FEDA’s objective is to provide a safe and celebratory platform for young artists and theatre makers to produce, direct and create exciting theatre.
and also ………………….
- To give a voice to the next generation to start critical conversations
- To grow theatre audiences and tap into the energy of our youth to change our perceptions.
Our Sponsors
We thank them for their support!
FEDA ALUMNI
- A Winning Play From 2016 “Born Naked”is Now An IEB Setwork.
- Micaela Jade Tucker Just Nominated For Best Newcomer At Naledi – For If A Tree Falls
- Cantona James best actor winner 2014 is now the lead actor Spinners – official selection for the Cannes film festival
- Shannon Esra Lead Actress In Lioness And Do Your Worst On Dstv And Netflix
- Kate Liquorish Do your worst on Netflix
- John Trengrove, director and writer of Inxeba - nominated as best foreign film at Oscars - now shooting movies in LA
- Eli Ossei award-winning playwright . Eugene O'neill play writing competition - semi-finals and now studying at NYU.
Awards in memory:
Some of our most talented actors who have graced our FEDA stage were taken from us far too soon and their families have donated awards in memory of them. These awards are incredibly special as they are presented by the mothers at our finals each year.
It is our great pleasure to introduce these exceptional performers to you.
And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed”— Maya Angelou.
“There are some who bring a light so great to the world. That even after they have gone. The light remains.”
The light of these young people will burn forever for all of us who knew them and saw them perform.
Brett Goldin
DENISE GOLDIN presents the trophy for the most inspirational performance each year. This could be for an ensemble group or for an individual performance. Her son, BRETT GOLDIN was brutally murdered in Cape Town in 2006. Brett was an incredibly versatile and talented performer and is known for his work in “Crazy Monkey” ,”Charlie Jade”, “Citizen Verdict” and acted in “Yizo Yizo”, “Slash”, and “Straight outta Benoni”. Brett also wrote his own renowned play “Bad Apple” based on the Columbine shootings but based at a private school in Johannesburg to critical acclaim. At the time of his most senseless death, Brett was about to leave for London to perform in Hamlet as Guildenstern at Stratford-upon-Avon. His murder was covered in the crime documentary “When two worlds collide: the Brett Goldin and Richard Bloom story” and Sir Anthony Sher presented a Channel 4 documentary called “Murder most Foul”. There is now a prestigious acting award called the Brett Goldin Bursary Fund that funds a young South African performer to study with the Royal Shakespeare Company overseas.
FEDA is immensely proud that Brett won Best Actor at the Raps festival which preceded FEDA for his performance in the hilarious Christopher Durang play “An Actor’s Nighmare” in 1995.
This year Robert Joseph, the patron of Raps is donating the RAPS trophy to FEDA and will
present it at our FINALs.
Cameron Conlon
Cameron Conlon died in 2016 and had won the Best Comic performer that very year at FEDA for his performance in the FEDA play “Disruption”. He had just been awarded Cultural Honours at St Stithian’s College for his incredible achievements in Drama.
He was only 18 when he passed away. Every year, his mother, Susan attends FEDA to present the award for the BEST CLOWN at the FEDA finals. Cameron was an extraordinary talent, he was an actor and singer and passionate about theatre. He would no doubt, have made his mark in the performing arts.
Xander Pretorius
Xander directed a superb production at FEDA called “Lidless” based on the prisons in Guantanamo Bay in 2014 and after he matriculated he was accepted at PACE university in New York to further study performance. Xander was a fearless actor, pushing himself to new challenges with every role he took on. His work was utterly groundbreaking.
During that time he performed in “Dracula” 2015, “Man Made Lifestyles” and “The Alpha Orange man” 2017. He passed away in March 2017 in New York.
The XANDER PRETORIUS award is given to the most CUTTING EDGE production or performance at FEDA each year.