meet the CREATIVES & crew

The Composer and The director

Walking along an icy winter street in London, England - writer Alice Gillham looked around her and realised that so many of the faces she could see were from somewhere else… that in today’s world so many of us are from somewhere else…
but we are all seeking Home.

So she began to write a story of hope, a story of love, a story of home…

Alice Gillham

COMPOSER | WRITER | LYRICIST | ARRANGER

Affectionately known by her nickname ‘Shy’, Alice is a quiet, thoughtful composer and writer. She prefers to work with a small team of trusted creative partners and often disappears to remote locations to write and create music.

Alice is a highly experienced and respected composer, producer, preproduction development specialist, vocal producer, orchestrator, lecturer and music consultant. She has produced and worked with musicians, artists, producers and composers in South Africa, Australia, the United States of America, Britain and Germany and is currently signed to Sony Music Publishing.

Throughout her life Alice has been passionately involved in all aspects of music, from its inception and creation to its production. She composes across multiple genres, loves the integration of music and great storytelling, and is enthralled by the emotional power of the human voice.

In a world obsessed with celebrities, in an industry obsessed with fame, from the very beginning of her career, Alice has shied away from the spotlight. With no social media presence and very rarely giving press interviews (under duress!) - Alice has mostly released her music production projects under pseudonym. She believes that the spotlight should shine on the superb singers and actors who she works closely with and who bring her songs and characters to life.

In 2014, after a decade in general commercial production, Alice decided to focus primarily on Composition (Musical Theatre, Movie Scoring, and larger Production Works) and since then has drawn substantial international investment into the South African theatre sector for original grand-scale projects. Her work is aligned under the production company Shy Music (Pty) Ltd.

She started work on Calling Us Home in 2014, writing the score, libretto, book and all piano and orchestral arrangements.

In 2020 she began writing Clarence Square – an original grand-scale musical set in 1904 during the Great Fire. Clarence Square was introduced to industry and audiences at an International In-Concert Showcase at the Wintergarten Variéte Theatre in Berlin in March 2024.

In 2011, she founded the Africa Voices Trust, a South African non-profit foundation created to support the development of highly talented young African musicians.

Peter FLYNN

DIRECTOR

Peter is a New York based, award winning director and Associate Professor of Musical Theatre at Montclair State University. His New York credits include the off-Broadway premiere of Smart Blonde by Willy Holtzman; Curvy Widow at the Westside Theatre; Chess with Josh Groban & Julia Murney; Funny Girl with Whoopi Goldberg, Jane Krakowski, & Sutton Foster; Our Town with B.D. Wong, and S. Epatha Merkerson; On the 20th Century with Douglas Sills & Marin Mazzie; & Rhapsody in Seth starring Seth Rudetsky. He is the first American director to premier a full scale musical in southern Africa.

Peter also created original musicals for young people with TheatreworksUSA which have toured for the past 17 years, including Junie B. Jones (two Lucille Lortel Award nominations); Henry and Mudge; Nate the Great; Skippyjon Jones; and Rosie Revere and Friends.

He kept active and innovative throughout the pandemic, and created a hybrid teleplay performance of Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates starring Andréa Burns for the George Street Playhouse, which received glowing notices from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Peter is also the Founding Artistic Director of Plays In The House, an award-winning play reading series raising money for the Actors’ Fund and NAACP / LDF which was featured on CBS’ Sunday Morning.

Other credits include Sweeney Todd for Connecticut Repertory starring Terrence Mann; Into the Woods for Ford’s Theatre (Helen Hayes Award nominee); Born Yesterday for the Maltz-Jupiter Theatre; Andrea Martin’s one woman show, Andrea Martin: Final Days Everything Must Go; Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop; Gypsy for the St. Louis MUNY; 1776 & Ragtime for Ford’s Theatre; & Man of La Mancha for the Maltz-Jupiter Theatre (Carbonell Award, Best Direction).

Peter is the Board President for Live And In Color a not-for-profit theatre organization dedicated to the development of plays and musicals by and for BIPOC Artists. He is also an Associate Artist at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C; an Artistic Ambassador for the Christchurch International Musical Theatre Summer School in New Zealand; and a graduate of Northwestern University.

It takes a village to build a musical…

Meet the Creative team

who brought the 2023 run of #CallingUsHome to life!

Pei Lee

Costume Designer
Pei Lee was born in Taiwan but has also called home to the following places: Spain, Chile, Brazil, Denmark, China, and USA where she has worked professionally in Washington D.C. and Olney Theatre Center, Maryland, for the past 20 years. And the one truth she has consistently experienced is that telling stories through clothing is never boring
Alan C. Edwards

Lighting Designer
Alan C. Edwards is a lighting designer known for his work on world premieres such as Harry Clarke (The Vineyard, NYC), Kill Move Paradise (National Black Theatre, NYC), and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hot Wing King (Signature Theatre, NYC). His regional credits include Sally & Tom (Guthrie Theatre), Pipeline and Skeleton Crew (Actors Theatre of Louisville), and Paradise Blue (Geffen Playhouse).
Other notable productions include Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 (Signature Theatre & American Repertory Theatre), Fires in the Mirror (Signature Theatre), and Twelfth Night (Classical Theatre of Harlem). He also designed for Bluebird Memories featuring rapper Common (Audible Theatre), and Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge (Elevator Repair Service).
Edwards has received nominations for the Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Henry Hewes awards. His dance credits include Where We Dwell and Chasing Magic by Ayodele Casel, Rhythm Is Life by Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and Lifted (American Ballet Theatre). Edwards is an assistant professor of lighting at the Yale School of Drama and was associate lighting designer for The Testament of Mary on Broadway.
Celeste Botha

Choreographer
Celeste Botha is a choreographer, dancer, and teacher with 30 years of experience in Ballet and Contemporary dance. She has received several awards, including 'Most Promising Contemporary Dancer' (1998 FNB Dance Indaba) and the 'KANNA' for Best Contribution to Contemporary Dance.
Celeste has performed with companies like Jazzart Dance Theatre and Free Flight Dance Company, and toured internationally with the Copenhagen International Ballet. She’s also appeared in the TV series Backstage and choreographed for So You Think You Can Dance and corporate events worldwide.
As co-artistic director of New World Dance Theatre, founded in 2013, her work has been showcased at major events such as the Baxter Dance Festival, Infecting the City, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Boys in the Photograph.
Lesedi Job

Resident Director
Lesedi Job is an award-winning theatre director, actress and voice artist. Her directing works include the award winning production When Swallows Cry, Itsoseng, Helen of Troyeville, Dead Tinder Society, Meet me at Dawn, Congo; the trial of King Leopold ii, Brutal Legacy and Kill Move Paradise.
She is a recipient of the Naledi Theatre award for Best Director, the Sophie Mgcina Emerging Voice Award, Mbokodo Women in Arts Award for Theatre and was nominated as a candidate for the prestigious Rolex Mentorship Protégé Arts Initiative.
Mark Malherbe

Sound Designer
Mark Malherbe is the technical director for Prosound and has more than 38 years’ experience in the industry. He has been responsible for the sound design of many local and international productions, including the world premieres of Sarafina! and Playland. More recently he worked on Orpheus in Africa, Cabaret, The Fugard Theatre’s production of West Side Story, Singin’ in the Rain, Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, Sunset Boulevard, Delirium and the Asian tours of Dirty Dancing and Jersey Boys. Mark has won five Naledi Sound Design Awards for That’ll Be the Day, We Will Rock You, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar and Annie.
Nadine Minnaar

Set & Production Design
Pretoria-based production designer Nadine Minnaar has been fascinated by behind-the-scenes work since childhood, leading her to graduate cum laude with a B.Tech in Entertainment Technology from Tshwane University of Technology.
Minnaar’s diverse portfolio spans from detailed prop design to large-scale stage creations for productions like the Fiesta Awards, Kinky Boots, and West Side Story (scenic painting for the Fugard Theatre). She’s also contributed to TV and film projects such as Egoli, Celebrity Game Nights, and The Bachelor, running her own company, Scene Visual Productions.
Minnaar is passionate about turning abstract ideas into tangible realities, and when not designing, she teaches Set & Scenic workshops at the University of Pretoria and operates The Proper Prop Shop, her prop rental business.
Werner Burger | Albino Creations

Animation Design
Albino Creations is a graphics company that specialises in animation, illustration and design.
Werner Burger, a co-founder of Albino Creations, specialises in animation, illustration and design. Over the past decade he has been involved with projects ranging from print design, motion design, 3D illustration and animation to web design and mobile gaming. He is involved in two musical projects, namely A Skyline on Fire and Sterrewag. As motion graphic designers, Albino Creations recently worked on the title sequence for Phil101 on kykNET, projection design for the kykNET Fiësta awards, as well as animation on campaigns for FNB, Vuzu AMP, General Electric and Kwesé.
Louis Minnaar | Albino Creations

Animation Design
Albino Creations is a graphics company that specialises in animation, illustration and design.
Co-founder Louis Minnaar is a director, animator, designer, illustrator, musician and all-round visual artist. He has created music videos for many of South Africa’s top musical acts, including Jack Parow, aKING, Van Coke Kartel and Flash Republic. Louis is also a member of the South African Music Award-winning Afrikaans electro-rap band Bittereinder.
Daniel Keet

Musical Director
Daniel Keet is a South African born artist, mostly active in Europe and South Africa. He studied orchestral conducting in Pretoria, Leipzig and Milan, and also obtained a masters from the Accademia Teatro alla Scala.
He currently works as a conductor and opera coach as well as a language and diction coach to singers and language students. He directed his focus toward education and development to ensure the future of music and literature with future generations.
Current engagements include the Berlin Opera Academy, Leipzig Opera Studio and the North Wales Opera Studio, along with development projects at the Ettienne Rousseau Theatre in South Africa.

Meet The Crew 2023

Below find the Crew that called our story to life at the Artscape Theatre

Originating Director | a daunting task

Originating a musical from the page is a daunting task. Characters have yet to come to life, the visual world of an imaginary place yet to be created, songs have never been sung before and the story has to come alive!

In 2016 South African director Magdalene Minnar took up that challenge and, with an extraordinary team of South African Creatives, began Calling Us Home’s development journey! Calling Us Home did two development runs in South Africa in 2017 & 2018.

Magdalene Minnaar - originating director of "Calling Us Home" — Magdalene MINNAAR

ORIGINATING DIRECTOR
Magdalene Minnaar is a South African director, producer and performer, well-known in the music industry locally and abroad for setting new trends and challenging conventional boundaries. She directed and produced her first opera in 2004, which led to a lucrative career in producing and directing operatic and theatrical experiences, enhanced by her innovative approach. Minnaar has been appointed as the new Artistic Director of Cape Town Opera.
After receiving her Honours Degree in Music with distinction from the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, she was accepted into the Cape Town Opera Young Artist Programme after which she was awarded a WBHO bursary for overseas studies, leading her to the New York Opera Studio.

In 2010, Minnaar founded the acclaimed company Biblioteek Productions, providing a platform for artists and theatre makers to collaborate on Classical music productions. Through Biblioteek Productions, she was able to successfully commission a large body of new South African works for various ensembles, including several new operas.

Magdalene has produced, directed, and performed in numerous operas, musical theatre works, inventive concerts and conceptual experiences. Her own productions include La Bohème (Cape Town Opera, Innibos Festival), Die Zauberflöte (Johannesburg International Mozart Festival), Bastien und Bastienne (Gauteng Opera), La Voix Humaine (Impac Film Festival) and Calling Us Home (Shy Music).

She is presently working on the new international Eco-Opera series of “recycled” operas, which will start in Brazil and Germany in 2022. Other projects taking flight are an original American opera about the life of Tesla, currently in pre-production; as well as an electronic oratorio film project with Mikhael Subotsky. Most recently, she has been director of the La Bohème touring production for Cape Town Opera. Learn more.

IT TAKES A GLOBAL VILLAGE…

*This collection of names is compiled with much gratitude and is not in a particular order

meet the CREATIVES & crew

The Composer and The director

Alice Gillham

Peter FLYNN

It takes a village to build a musical…

Meet the Creative team

who brought the 2023 run of #CallingUsHome to life!

Pei Lee

Alan C. Edwards

Celeste Botha

Lesedi Job

Mark Malherbe

Nadine Minnaar

Werner Burger | Albino Creations

Louis Minnaar | Albino Creations

Daniel Keet

Meet The Crew 2023

Originating Director | a daunting task

Magdalene MINNAAR

IT TAKES A GLOBAL VILLAGE…