Fourie, Charles (South Africa)
Charles J. Fourie is an accomplished and multi-award winning playwright, scriptwriter, and film and theater director and producer whose works have been staged throughout South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and also broadcast on various radio and television stations such as SABC, M-NET, KykNET, BBC in the United Kingdom, Radio Sonder Grense, and Maroela Radio.
He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his writing including the Amstel Playwright of the Year award, which he received on two occasions, the AA Life/Vita Best New Play and Best Production awards, the SACPAC Playwright of the Year award, a RSG Radio Drama award (including several nominations), DALRO Best New Play award, KKNK/Nagtegaal Best Play award, and the Maskew Miller Literary award for drama. He was also recently nominated for six KykNET Fiesta theatre awards for the production of his play Agterplaas.
In 2014 he received a medal of honour from the South African Academy for Arts and Science for his radio drama writing, and is also currently a finalist for the ATKV Woordveertjie award for drama for his latest play Wond during 2014. His play Ella’s Horse’s received a Standard Bank Standing Ovation award at the 2014 Grahamstown Arts Festival where it was staged to great critical acclaim. His other latest play Happy about the life and times of Happy Sindane has been invited to tour the Netherlands and UK as part of the Afrovibes Festival during 2015.
He has also written, directed and produced several short film scripts and worked as a scriptwriter on various television series over the past few years. These productions include; Montana (Penguin Films/SABC1), Home Affairs (Penguin Films/SABC1), Deeltitel Dames (Penguin Films/KykNET), Binnelanders (Stark Films/KykNET), Pottie Potgieter (Opperman Productions/SABC2), A Reel Life (SABC3), SOS Family of Man (C-Films/SABC2), and the short films Stander (M-NET), Eiland (M-NET), Vrededorp (M-NET), and Desire (Sithengi Film Festival).
More recently he completed the filming of his play Agterplaas as a short film for the KykNET Silwerskerm festival, and was nominated in the best script category. As a script editor and script developer he has worked for companies like Fremantle, Waterfront Television, C-Films, Penguin Films, BBC, E-TV and is currently a panellist script reader for KykNET/M-NET films development.