The dramatic, daring life of doyen of children’s theatre

“Whenever there are children, there’s a spark of life that makes theatre a riveting adventure,” children’s theatre doyenne Joyce Levinsohn told the SA Jewish Report in 2004. The founder of Johannesburg’s oldest traditional children’s theatre, Levinsohn championed theatre for youngsters, over generations. She succumbed to Alzheimer’s on 6 November 2021. She was 86.

Blessed with talent to dance and perform, Levinsohn (nee Zinman) was born in Johannesburg on 19 February 1935. Schooled in Berea, she started her career in ballet and was the Johannesburg Youth Ballet’s first lead dancer. Like many little girls of her era, she learnt elocution from the age of 10.

Mentored by iconic theatre personalities Elizabeth Sneddon and Taubie Kushlick, Levinsohn pursued both her performative loves. In the early 1950s, she qualified with an Associate Speech and Drama Teacher’s Diploma from Trinity College in London, a teacher’s diploma from the Royal Academy of Dance, and a Licentiate in Speech and Drama, also from Trinity.

Apartheid had just been ratified. Levinsohn vowed to do what she could to make a meaningful difference in her black peers’ lives. In 1954, she co-established the Zinman-Green Speech and Drama Studio, where she readied performers for eisteddfods and taught teachers theatre-in-education.

As her drama students flourished, so they began to need a platform. A Sandton communal hall served the purpose until 1976, when the company Children’s Theatre Productions was established with Levinsohn at its helm. It thrust her into the eye of the creative storm: 1976 was the year of the Soweto Riots, the arrival of television, and the establishment of the Market Theatre. The country was a cauldron of creative protest.

With no promise of state funding, Levinsohn had to take on the mantle of financial director, theatre co-director, and voice coach simultaneously for her new company. During this time, she learnt how to knock on government and corporate doors to raise funds.

In 1987, at the height of South Africa’s state of emergency, Levinsohn conceived of an “interactive, eco-musical to promote the message of conservation”, which also aimed to address a lack of awareness of African folklore traditions. The show, Songs and Tales Under African Skies, was born. It toured the country and the world, opening up theatre awareness to everyone, including children who may never have had access to theatre. It also put Levinsohn’s work on the map.

The Johannesburg Youth Theatre Trust was formalised as a non-profit educational theatre trust in 1990. It was granted a 50-year lease by the Johannesburg City Council on the Parktown heritage site, where it still operates as the National Children’s Theatre.

And with the intrigues of the Brothers Grimm, magical princesses, and social awareness told by bears and ducks, the theatre thrived, bringing to fruition many of Levinsohn’s dreams about theatre especially for young audiences and the doors that the industry could open for life. Many of today’s seasoned theatre professionals passed through Levinsohn’s hands, from Daphne Kuhn of Auto & General Theatre on the Square to Jill Gerard of the People’s Theatre in Braamfontein.

Levinsohn received a Vita Award for her contribution to children’s theatre in South Africa in 1990, a lifetime achievement award from the Arts and Culture Trust in 2001, and a Naledi award for lifetime achievement in 2005.

Levinsohn, who stepped down from the theatre in 2011 due to ill health, lost her husband, Lionel, last year. They were married for 64 years. She leaves her children, Steven, David, Lawrence, and Della and their families, as well as generations of theatre lovers who had their eyes and souls opened by her work, from both sides of the footlights.