User:Phala-O-Phala/sandbox

A theatre marker, educator and researcher Phala was born to South African born and exiled parents Tebogo Phala and Dikitso Daniel Seokamo. He grew up in Ramotswa Village in the South East district of the Republic of Botswana. This humble village introduced him to Setswana and the Balete culture. His was mainly raised by his grandparents Josphine Mamie and Josiah Boysie Phala in an extended family setup where his aunts played critical roles in his up-bringing.

Together with Samson Setumo, Phala pioneered theatre as business through establishing Millennium Production House in Gaborone, Botswana. The company uses dramatic arts as tool for behavioral change and communication. He went on to study Applied Theatre and Writing at University of Witwatersrand under the Drama For Life Program attaining a BA Honors in Dramatic Arts in 2009. He was awarded the Marshall Kander Drama for Life Award for Best Honors Research in 2009. In 2010 he was awarded a Merit Award and got the DFL Bursary supported by the Goethe Institute to study Master of Arts by Coursework and Research Report in the field of Drama whose courses included Theatre Directing, Theatre Studies and Performance Theory and Performance Laboratory. He was awarded his second Marshall Kander Drama for Life Award for best research by a Masters student in 2012. His directing course production, Red Peter's Way Out, an adaptation of Franz Kafka's A Report To An Academy, was chosen as the offical entry of the University of Witwatersrand into the National Arts Festival 2011. In 2013 Phala was awarded the Theatre Arts Admin Collective's Emerging Director's Bursary where he directed a devised production, Cantos Reborn featuring a cast of Thando Doni, Imaan Isaacs and Alecia Daniels.