Karoo Moose - No Fathers

Baxter Theatre Centre at the University of Cape Town

US Premiere – Part of the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts

Country of Origin: South Africa

Karoo Moose – No Fathers takes place in a remote and impoverished village in the Karoo, South Africa, where the inhabitants are struggling to survive. A young girl kills a moose but what is the moose doing there and how did it get there? The multi-award-winning story about the disintegration of the family unit and the violation of innocence endured by so many South African children is the focus of the play that cleverly and creatively combines African story-telling and magical realism.

“It’s the sort of thing everyone should see at least once in their lives…it will change you forever.” – City Press, South Africa

Karoo Moose – No Fathers is the winner of 18 top theater awards. It has received overwhelming praise from critics and audiences alike, including in South Africa and at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival in London.

The show is performed in English with some isiXhosa.

The Baxter Theatre is a world-class institution dating from 1976, when it was created as a pillar of hope during the apartheid era, leveraging its relationship with the University of Cape Town to present multi-racial, progressive work in a time of complete censorship. In 1985, the first interracial kiss occurred on a South African stage in the Baxter’s Miss Julie; today, its version Mies Julie has performed to great acclaim all over the world. Karoo Moose is the seminal work of its current artistic leader, highly regarded worldwide, writer and director Lara Foot. About it she says, “Something magical was needed to break the cycle of violence.”