Deon Opperman

Deon Opperman is an award-winning South African writer and producer. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Rhodes University); a Bachelor of Arts Honours (University of Cape Town); a Master of Arts (Northwestern University, Chicago); and a Master of Business Administration (Wits University). He has twice received the Hertzog Prize for Literature (Drama) - the highest Afrikaans literary award in South Africa, awarded by the South African Academy of Science and Art. Deon is fluent in both English and Afrikaans, and writes in both languages.His professional career began in 1984. He has written extensively for television and theatre. Writing for television includes ten drama series of 13 x 1-hour episodes, and seven teleplays. All these television productions were broadcast on the South African Multichoice kykNET channel. Writing for stage includes twenty-two English, and fifteen Afrikaans full-length professionally-produced stage plays; the books and librettos of eight full-length musicals; and the libretto of the oratorio, Die Skepping (The Creation). All these theatre pieces were presented in opera houses and theatres throughout South Africa. As producer he has produced all the television productions he has written, and produced and directed all his works for the theatre, as well as plays and musicals by other playwrights. In 1996 he was a founding director of AFDA: The South African School of Motion Picture Medium and Live Performance. In 2016 he established the online archive, the AKDA (Afrikaanse Kontemporêre Drama Argief/Afrikaans Contemporary Drama Archive), to preserve for posterity, the many unpublished plays created by the vibrant Afrikaans theatre industry.