Marcelle Pincus’s message in her coming musical at the Theatre on the Square is simple: touch a life and make a difference.
In the production, which was first staged at the National Arts Festival more that 15 years ago, Pincuc relives her journey through adversities while sending a message of hope to the audience.
On how the production came about, she said: “It’s a musical about my life story. I wrote it many years ago for fun and my colleague at Crawford said ‘you take the children to Grahamstown, every year, why don’t you perform this play and the children to be in it’.
“I agreed on one condition: we must take the smallest venue available because what if nobody comes, and then he said to me, ‘Well, there’s your name (for the production)’. This was about 16 years ago,” she said.
“When we got to Grahamstown he gave four boys tickets for the show, not thinking that they would show up, but they did. And by the end of the show they were the first to stand up and give the show a standing ovation.
“Upon speaking to them afterwards, they said that when I spoke about adversity, they knew what I was speaking about, we understood the word and how to overcome everything with prayers and ideas and going a step further to improve others lives too.”
The show also talks about her breakthroughs.
“I had a very difficult junior start at school, the reason being that I couldn’t speak English properly, but the breakthroughs came one after the other thereafter. The nuns at the convent I attended always cared what I was going to do when I finished school.
“I only wanted to do drama, I’d been in two productions and one of the sisters said to me, ‘I don’t think this is enough, you need to go out and touch lives and make a difference’,” said Pincus, and 65 years later, she is teaching and loves every minute of it.
She wrote this play because she wanted people to understand that they should never give up. She said that if a child was struggling, teachers should find what they were good at and help them grow.
“The moment I started teaching at a school, which chased away three teachers, I made up my mind that if you love the children and kept on encouraging them to do what they could do, they would reach total success. And I think that’s mainly what happened in my life.
“The important thing for me is seeing children come to fruition and to believe in what they doing.”
This new reworked version of “What If Nobody Comes” includes a cast of 12 children, Dani Davis, who is the choreographer, Tulla Eckhart the musical director, and musical artists Jonathan Birin and Ros Basserabie.
Basserabie will sing the final song in the musical which focuses on mothers.
“Mothers are universal and everybody loves their mothers, so it is a tribute to every mother in the audience. I felt that everyone in the audience had loved and lost somebody who was very near and dear to them.”
Her message is: “Believe in yourself. Whatever creed or nation you are, hold on to that power and realise that every single person in life needs a chance, give it to them, touch a life and make a difference.
“What if Nobody Comes?” will stage on June 4 at 6pm at Theatre On The Square. Tickets priced at R30 to R70.
African Ginger’s Solo Exhibition
Where: 70B Oxford Road, Riviera, Johannesburg.
When: June 8 to July 7. Tuesdays to Fridays, 10am to 5pm, and on Saturdays by appointment only.
Johannesburg-based illustrator, painter and multimedia artist Seth Pimentel aka African Ginger will host his first solo digital exhibition titled “The Pride Comes Before the Fall”.
Pimentel will present a collection of 12 digital portraits honouring the diversely melanated skin of persons of colour in South Africa.
His artistic practice revolves around pushing the limits of modern portraiture by seamlessly blending painting, drawing and digital illustration, resulting in an innovative hybrid style that embraces experimentation.
