Shakespeare Schools FestivalMALAWI
Our Vision 2027 / 2032
This document, which dates to the seventh Festival, conducted at Madsoc Theatre, Lilongwe, on Saturday, 27th June, 2026, is ‘work in progress’. It will evolve as we discuss with those who might assist in re-establishing the Festival along sustainable lines: preserving what has been excellent in the past and allowing both continuity and new expression in the future.
2017 - 2026
The Festival, in conjunction with the South African, has allowed most of two thousand young people and their teachers to bring Shakespeare to life (in thirty minute adaptations) on the stage. They have come from every region of Malawi. Institutions have been: primary, secondary and tertiary; private and Government. A special pleasure has been to involve the deaf. We acknowledge the support of Kamuzu Academy over many years. The Festival has been largely based there, and we appreciate the regional identity (Kasungu district) that it has assumed, but it has also travelled, throughout Malawi. In 2020 a Malawi play was performed in Cape Town. We are fiercely proud of this achievement. Benefit is academic, of course, but also social: headteachers speak (again and again) of participants constituting ‘a school within the school’. Work has been undertaken to record the response of both pupils and teachers.
2026 - 2027
We have resumed the Festival after a hiatus of three years. Over the next year we undertake to attempt the following:
To continue to honour the friendship of the South African Festival.
To build on our new relationship with Madsoc Theatre and Mwezi Arts, Lilongwe.
To approach the Ministry of Education for its advice and support.
To establish a committee ‘of the willing’ to assist (on a voluntary basis) to manage the Festival.
To create a holding company (non profit) to operate the Festival.
To explore funding and other income generating opportunities to allow the Festival to continue on a sustainable basis.
To seek ways of involving more institutions (schools and otherwise) in the Festival.
To conduct the next Festival by June 2027 latest.
To preserve the record of the Festival’s beginning in an article presented for publication in the Journal of the Society of Malawi.
2027 - 2032
In 2032 we will mark our fifteenth anniversary. The proof of our success will be that the Festival is self-sustaining. We look forward to an organisation akin to that in South Africa (or indeed, the UK), whereby the Festival has become an intrinsic part of a Malawi education, presenting a Malawi Shakespeare both to Malawi and to the world ‘Beyond the Lake’.