We were lucky to catch up with Lesedi Job recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lesedi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I remember listening to an interview on the radio. It was an interview with a news reader I grew up listening to on the radio and watching on TV. She was talking about a book, Brutal Legacy, that she had written, a memoir about her life and an incident where she had been beaten by her boyfriend. I remembered the incident and had often wondered what had happened to her as she was no longer a radio or TV presenter . I called my mother and asked her to buy me the book, an idea sparked and I had decided that her story would be the next story I wanted to tell.

I directed the play Brutal Legacy in 2019 inspired by the memoir of Tracy Going. The story of her growing up in a home with domestic violence and how that had impacted her life and in some ways led to her being in an abusive relationship. I approached Natasha Sutherland to adapt the book into a play script and then spoke to Daphne Kuhn at Theatre on the Sqaure to see if she might be interested in producing the play. I was living at home at the time and took some of my savings to pay a few creatives I had worked with in the past, Hlomohang Law, Ntuthuko Mbuyazi and Lungile Cindi, to come on board and take Tracy Going‘s story one step further than her book. Despite the statistics as well as the many South African women that were being murdered by partners, South Africa was still sweeping the issue of Gender Based violence and Femicide under the carpet and through the telling of Tracy’s story I hoped that we could impact the lives of South African women; getting women to identify certain red flags within their own relationships and hopefully change one person’s life by getting them to walk away from an abusive relationship or even just by sharing the story letting women who had suffered from some form of abuse, know they were not alone. I had a conversation with Tracy about adapting the play, as she was concerned that as a white woman her story had no relevance in South Africa with a black majority but I insisted that the story stay as her story as a white woman because the issue of GBVF in South Africa affects all races in the country despite the nuances within the different racial and cultural groups.

When the play premiered we struggled with audiences and even though I felt like we had done the right thing by telling this story it always felt like we had opened a can of worms and made people uncomfortable. In 2021 during the COVID pandemic President Cyril Ramaphosa declared Gender Based Violence and Femicide a second pandemic in South Africa. I innately have a disdain for injustice and it has always been in my nature to speak out against the suffering of others. The creation of this play meant that I was able to give voice to someone else’s suffering and extend her story to reach a wider audience. Creating the theatre production of Brutal Legacy led to me devising a play with Durban actors that was performed for High School students in the township and rural KwaZulu-Natal to address the issue of Gender Based Violence and the play Brutal Legacy is part of the Documentary film That’s What She Said directed by Natasha Sutherland. I feel like even though it may be in the smallest way, I have played my part in doing something to address the issue of Gender Based Violence and Femicide in South Africa.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I still remember going to the theatre with my parents to watch a South African theatre production Marabi at the iconic Market Theatre in Johannesburg. Little did I know that years later the Market Theatre would be the birth place of both Lesedi Job the actress and the theatre director. I started working in the South African arts industry in 2008 after graduating from Wits University with a BA Dramatic Arts degree studying both music and drama. My professional debut as an actress was in Wole Soyinka’s the Lion and the Jewel which premiered at the State Theatre and then transferred to the Market Theatre. As an actress I have performed in South African theatre productions like Fisher’s of Hope, Curl up and Dye, If we dig and Touch my blood. But I have also had the opportunity to explore my versatility as an actress with accent work in African American productions like Colored Museum, Raisin in the Sun and Paradise Blue. I worked for 8 years as an actress before transitioning into the role of theatre director with my directorial debut of Mike Van Graan’s When Swallows Cry.

During my time of working in the SA theatre industry as an actress I had never won an award. I had been nominated on two occasions as a lead and a supporting lead, for my performance in Fisher’s of Hope and A Raisin in the sun respectively, but I had never taken an award home with me. My directorial debut When Swallows Cry won Best Production, Best Director. and Best New South African Script. A highlight and outstanding achievement for me in career because the awards were an affirmation of a gift ; I had only studied a semester course in directing whilst in University and my directorial debut was an attempt at something I was particularly insecure about at that time. Since then I have directed Itsoseng, Helen Of Troyeville, Congo the Trial of King Leopold, Brutal Legacy, Dead Tinder Society and international plays like Meet Me at Dawn and Kill Move Paradise. In 2023 I worked as a resident director on the South African Musical Calling Us Home alongside New York Based director Peter Flynn as I am always open to opportunities of learning for the purpose of my growth as an artist/creative. In some ways this was a continuation of my 2016 mentorship in Toronto when I was Assistant to Adrian Noble during the workshop of the musical Sousatska as these two creative processes have given me an opportunity to get a better understanding of the Broadway Musical. I also consider these two opportunities to be preparation for the possibility of the next part of my journey. Whilst in University I studied both Music and Drama but when I graduated I majored in Dramatic Arts. I mostly starred in Musical Theatre productions, playing Timoune in Once on this Island, Domina in A funny thing happened….. and in my final year a musical revue iNje -based on our lives and relationships with our parents. I had always assumed that I would transition into Musical theatre as a working artist but that was not the case. South Africa is still in its early stages of creating authentically South African musicals as the Musical Theatre industry in the country is made up mostly of imports. But it is my dream to be part of a team of creatives that come up with a sort of blue print for the South African Musical to grow the Musical Theatre in the country.

The late Moonyeen Lee, one of South Africa’s top agents came to watch the production iNje whilst I was in University and signed me with her agency. It was through MLASA that I auditioned and was cast in The Lion and The Jewel but in 2013 I moved over to OSMTalent and that opened the door for a particularly successful career as a voiceover artist. I consider myself to be storyteller , whether I act, sing or direct because that is my gift. But I am also an orator as Public Speaking is something that comes naturally to me. I think it is the combination of both abilities/gifts, that of being an orator and a storyteller that work in my favour as a voiceover artist.

It is the “Human Experience” that I am most passionate about in the theatre productions I have directed. The lived experience of another, their challenges, the complexities, the cry to the world to be understood and seen especially when we have suffered. If I can get an audience to shift just one thing in their perspective in the telling of another’s story then my job is done. I think at some point in my life I wanted to change the world but I am aware that the one thing or person I have the power to change is myself. So when it comes to the world, humanity and change the one thing I can do is tell a story. This is what led to Brutal Legacy a play that addresses the issue of Gender Based Violence in South Africa through the telling of Tracy Going‘s Story and directing James iJames’ Kill Move Paradise that is in support of the Black Lives Matter Movement which came as idea after the impact George Floyd’s murder had on me. When Swallows Cry addressed the issue of Immigration for Africans and Congo the Trial of King Leopold ii was a play where a retired Advocate put King Leopold ii on trial for the atrocities he committed on the people in the Congo, it was adapted from Mark Twain’s soliloquy King Leopold’s Soliloquy. These are some of the stories I have told and hope to continue to find ways to tell powerful yet beautiful stories that shift people’s perspectives, create awareness and give a voice to those that often go unheard in society and the world.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Unfortunately my divorce was a second trauma in my life. In 2015 at the age of 31 I got divorced and by the end of the year I had moved back home to live with my mother, the property my ex husband and I had bought and were renting out was in arrears with the bank, for the first time since being employed I was struggling financially and the disappointment of what my life had become, broke my spirit. In 2016 I started the year with a plan of auditioning for acting jobs that might have helped me towards improving my financial situation, but as a result of stress I broke out in the worst case of eczema-what started out as a rash spread to my hands, arms, chest and legs and limited me in terms of the work I could do as an actress. Because of the distance between performer and audience I was still able to do theatre and felt quite hard done by because the solutions I had come up with to change my life were taken away from me. There was an opportunity presented to go to Canada and assist a director in the workshop of a new musical. Even though I wouldn’t earn a salary I looked at it as an opportunity to learn and the stipend paid in dollars would make a slight difference to a South African’s pocket. During my time in Canada my maternal grandmother who I was extremely close to and had raised me from infancy to toddlerhood passed away and I couldn’t return to South Africa to bury her. I have made peace with not being at her funeral but at the time it was hard for me to accept. When I returned to South Africa from Canada I was given my first play as a director. Even though it might have seemed like I had nothing to lose, for me it felt like I had everything to lose. Public failure was a reality in my life and the possibility of failing as a director consumed every fibre of my being. For some reason to me it seemed that if the production didn’t work out, just like my personal life I would have nothing left. There was the added pressure of naysayers from the industry and people waiting for me to fail which was quite daunting because I had not experienced this as an actress. I was in a constant state of fear, shock and doubt but I put my head down and threw myself into the work. Half the time l didn’t know what I was doing and the isolation and loneliness amplified the loneliness I was struggling with as a divorcee. Opening Night was packed, an audience made up of family and friends who came to support and of course the industry naysayers who were anticipating my failure. I remember sitting with knots in my stomach squeezing the hand of the lighting designer throughout the whole show. The play was a success. During this time in my life working as a theatre director was the thing I lived for. I was determined to work and get back up on my feet, to fuel my name with as much dignity and pride as I could muster. I was shifting my title from broke divorcee to something else that I could own for myself.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me as an artist and creative there are two aspects of what I do that are most rewarding. The first aspect is job satisfaction because I set high standards for myself. For example as a voiceover artist I walk into a studio and work with the client and creatives from an advertising agency. The client want to communicate to their audience and they have approached the agency to come in and assist them by writing something that captures what it is that they want to communicate. I come in at the end as a voiceover artist and my job is to breath life into what they want to communicate. I bring heart, emotion, feeling, expression and technique to speak to the minds and hearts of their audience. When I am done doing a voiceover and both the client and agency are happy, I walk away feeling proud for meeting my standards and affirmed within the gift I have as an orator/storyteller. The second aspect is when the intention with the telling of a story has been met. As a director there is an impact that I would like to have on an audience watching/experiencing a story. There are conventions used, ideas that have been mulled over, performance choices and work put into how the story is told. It can be even more challenging when a story deals with an uncomfortable or difficult subject and is emotionally charged, because there’s a fine line between affecting an audience and manipulating or shocking them. When the audience gets the story and is moved by the story it is deeply rewarding because that which was intended has been met.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: lesedi_job
• Facebook: Lesedi Job
• Other: https://www.osmtalent.com/artist/lesedi-job/

Image Credits

Personal photo: Kevin Mark Pass

When Swallows Cry James Wassawa

Congo Trial of King Leopold ii Iris Parker Dawn