all my ex-lovers are dead
Written by Dara Beth
Previous Performances
Artscape, Cape Town
dir. Thembela Madliki | 2021
Ground Zero, Cape Town | 2022
Toneelhuis, Cape Town | 2023
SU Toyota Woordfees, Stellenbosch | 2023
National Arts Festival Curated Programme, Makhanda | 2024
HEAT Winter Arts Festival, Cape Town | 2024
Baxter's Masambe Theatre, Cape Town | 2024
Original Cast
Maggie Gericke
Awards and Nominations
Artscape "New Voices" Programme Selected Script | 2021
STAND Foundation and Vrystaat Kunstefees "Pen To Paper" Programme Selected Script | 2022
National Arts Festival Curated Programme Selected Production | 2024
Qondiswa James, 2024
Photo Credit: Mark Wessels
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Maggie Gericke, 2021
Maria Vos, 2023
Photo Credit: Nardus Engelbrecht
Synopsis
Witty and honest, this play is a fresh exploration of love and relationships. Meet the hopeful and wide-eyed Echo: Echo hasn’t had the best run, romantically speaking, but honestly, who has? But that won’t stop Echo from telling us about e e cummings, how not to confess your undying love via voice note and what to do with the love that we are left with when all our lovers are gone.
Written and directed by Dara Beth, all my ex-lovers are dead is an all-too-honest story of all the loves we’ve had, all the loves we could have had, and all the loves we should not have hoped to have had told over the course of an evening and many, many cups of tea.
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Selected text for Artscape’s New Voices Programme (2021) and STAND Foundation’s Pen To Paper Programme in association with NATi and Vrystaat Kunstefees (2022), at the start of 2023–as part of the Pen To Paper programme–all my ex-lovers are dead was awarded a fully-funded run at SU Toyota Woordfees in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Media & Reviews
Qondiswa James, 2024
Photo Credit: Mark Wessels
Beautiful, emotionally charged, writing... The nuanced text will resonate with people of all ages, not just young people and is inspirational in terms of its call to take ownership, of bitterness of losses, to somehow find humour and sustenance and get a sense of an ‘ending’; of ‘closure’.
Robyn Cohen, The Cape Robyn