A HANDFUL OF KEYS

THE PERFORMERS

IAN VON MEMERTY
Ian's success as the complete entertainer has been based on his extraordinary energy and versatility. He was voted one of South Africa's Top Ten Theatricals by 'The Star', and has received 14 Vita Theatre Awards, for Best Musical Performance, Best Musical Production, and Best Original Script.

Stage roles have included the tap dancing Bobby Childs in 'Crazy For You', Frank 'n Furter in 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', The Narrator in 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat', Captain Tempest in 'Return to the Forbidden Planet', Eugene in 'Brighton Beach Memoirs', Buttons in 'Cinderella', Mordred in 'Camelot', and Jeff Barry in 'Leader of the Pack'.

His versatility made him an ideal performer in compilation shows including 'Femme! Fatale?', Six of the Best', 'Viva Sun City', ' Touch of Webber - A Taste of Rice', 'Say It With Music' - the music of Irving Berlin, 'Café Follies', two ' Rock 'n Roll shows', 'Mae West and the Boys'. He also modeled a very effective early Donny Osmond hairstyle as the host for 72 episodes of 'Muziek a la Carte'.

As writer and director, shows have included 'Two Women in Song', 'Femme! Fatale?' 'Cadenza', 'Two Thin Men Sing', 'Six of the Best', 'Say It With Music', 'A Handful of Keys', 'Cadenza X-Trav', 'Reflections', 'Who Stole The Orchestra?', 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'Hot Chocolate', 'Glory Days', the much acclaimed and controversial musical 'Fiela's Child', for which he wrote score, script, and lyrics, and most recently the 'Umoja - The Spirit of Togetherness", which played at The Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End, to rave reviews and standing ovations.

He is married to Vivienne Lawrence, they have two children Oscar and Kasvia, 'the most satisfying production I have ever done'.

ROELOF COLYN
Roelof started his career in musical theatre, his first job being the Navigational Officer in 'Return to the Forbidden Planet' with Heidi Edeling, Ian von Memerty, David Lee and David Dennis - a scary experience! Nevertheless, he tried to keep his cool, deciding to rather ease into things … He did about four years of arrangements for albums (Michael Cox and Ingo Trieloff), choral arranging and composition, jingle writing and especially freelance performing, mostly as an accompanist, playing with some of Africa's finest singers.

But once the theatre bug has bitten … He played keyboards for 'Rocky Horror' in Bloemfontein and Cape Town, band leader for 'Let's Rock' at Carnival City.

His first Musical Director job was 'Mercury Rising', which toured the country to big audiences and (thank God!) critical acclaim. He has just completed the orchestrations for the new production of the original South African musical 'Scribble'. But - if he has to be completely honest - he would have to say that in terms of creative input, creative output, fun discipline, skill, growth, mastery, food for mind and soul, his greatest pleasure has been performing 'Handful Of Keys' with Ian von Memerty.