By Arts Correspondent
HARARE — Almasi Collaborative Arts has set the tone for its 2026 artistic programme with a free public staged reading of Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark play A Raisin in the Sun.
The production positions dramatic literacy, professional training and community engagement at the centre of the organisation’s creative agenda for the year.
A staged reading will take place on Saturday, 14 February at 2:30 PM at the Friendship Bench Hub in Harare, according to a statement issued on 9 February 2026.
This production launches one of Almasi’s signature programmes, the Staged Reading, which forms a core part of the organisation’s long-term strategy to strengthen the craft of African theatre practitioners through rigorous textual engagement.
Directed by Leonard Matsa, the production features a blend of veteran Almasi collaborators and emerging performers, including Daniel Nkumalo, Evita Mahachi, Deborah Kabongo, Charlene Mangweni-Furusa, Godblessus Dhliwayo, Chiedza Matabuka, Ronald Sigeca, Aaron Dobi, Clive Jonga and Michael Kudakwashe.
The ensemble reflects Almasi’s commitment to intergenerational knowledge exchange and skills development within Zimbabwe’s creative sector.
Anchoring the production process is a two-day intensive dramaturgical workshop led by Almasi’s Programmes Director, Gideon Jeph Wabvuta.
It brings together the cast, director and a cohort of Almasi-trained directors and playwrights to interrogate the structure, themes and language of Hansberry’s text before moving into rehearsals that culminate in the public performance.
Matsa framed the production as a reflection on enduring human challenges, highlighting the ways personal values and resilience shape our response to hardship.
“A Raisin in the Sun is a timeless and universally relevant play reminding us that in the midst of overwhelming adversities including class struggles, hope is all we have and need. It is the fuel that drives existence.
“And when all seems lost, our integrity is our last line of salvation,” he said.
Wabvuta said opening the year with Hansberry’s work was a deliberate decision aimed at setting a high artistic benchmark for the season.
“It is truly rewarding to open our 2026 season with one of our mainstay programmes, the Almasi Staged Reading.
“By establishing this strong foundational start to the year with one of the greatest plays ever written, we are setting a clear frame through which excellence, professionalism, and authentic artistic expression will be nurtured within both our new talent and our seasoned Almasi alumni,” he said.
First staged on Broadway in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun holds a pivotal place in theatre history as the first play by a Black woman playwright to be produced on Broadway.
Written by American dramatist Lorraine Hansberry and inspired by Langston Hughes’s poem Harlem, the play follows a Black working-class family in Chicago as they confront housing discrimination, systemic racism and competing visions of assimilation and self-determination.
The play won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play in 1959 and remains a fixture on international lists of the most influential plays ever written.
Almasi’s decision to stage the play in Harare underscores the continued relevance of Hansberry’s themes within contemporary African contexts marked by economic inequality, social exclusion and struggles over dignity and opportunity.
The organisation views the staged reading as both an artistic presentation and a pedagogical exercise designed to deepen critical engagement with canonical texts while encouraging locally grounded interpretations.
Marking the start of a wide-ranging 2026 programme, the staged reading kicks off professional workshops in stage management and directing led by visiting United States artist Adam Immerwahr, as well as voice and acting training facilitated by faculty from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Participants will also engage in a filmmaker intensive with an internationally recognised director yet to be announced, alongside the inaugural “Africa Voices Now!” initiative.
Festival of New Plays scheduled for October and November, and the Almasi African Writers Conference, now expanded to include screenwriters.
The year-long programme is complemented by sustained community outreach initiatives led by Almasi’s Community Engagements Manager, Tafadzwa Bob Mutumbi, including the Solo Initiative Monologue Programme targeting out-of-school youth and marginalised communities.
Co-founded and led by internationally acclaimed playwright and actor Danai Gurira, Almasi Collaborative Arts is a Harare-based organisation dedicated to promoting dramatic literacy and artistic excellence.
Through world-class training, access and performance opportunities, the organisation seeks to empower African creatives to develop their craft and bring their narratives to regional and global stages.
With A Raisin in the Sun anchoring its opening programme, Almasi enters 2026 with a clear artistic vision that positions theatre as a space for reflection, professional growth and community dialogue, reaffirming the enduring power of classic texts to speak to contemporary African realities.
