Jaco Van Rensburg

Jaco Van Rensburg is a true Jack of All Trades in the theatre industry, and is becoming a Master of all too. He started off as an actor, performing in shows like Showboat (the International Touring Company), Rent, Jersey Boys (International Touring Company), to name a few.

But it wasn’t just the performing bug that hit him, he has accreditations as Choreographer, Resident Director and now as Executive Producer of VR Theatrtical.

Together with Associate Producer, Wessel Oddendaal, Jaco is creating a name for himself as a credible Theatre Maker.

VR Theatrical have just completed the run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

I spoke briefly to this creative about his vision for theatre in South Africa and his up and coming shows.

Jaco:
“We are doing what other producers are not doing, we are trying to carve a niche for ourselves. We are doing stuff that is edgy, and focused on a younger market. Rogers and Hammerstein is where it all started, and it has its place, but musical theatre has grown in the last 15 to 20 years, and is starting to tackle issues. We very rarely get to see that stuff in South Africa, and we see it in the experimental work that is hot off of Broadway.”

“Hedwig is a risk, but we want to take risks and we want to get people talking about us. It’s a new play with an awesome rock score. It is also a story about love. Although the main character is a drag queen she talks about universal themes like love and finding your other half, is there another half, does love exist?”

Avenue Q:
Jaco:
“What Sesame Street did in the USA or Takelani Street did for South Africa, is that it taught us life lessons through puppets and music. Avenue Q takes the same model and teaches adults about adult themes and how to cope with life. It’s a very interesting concept. It is not a show for kids. It is aimed at the adult market and speaks about important topics like racism, there is a song called ‘Everyone’s a little bit Racist’ but it is done with such an upbeat twinkly, child like tune that you cannot do anything but laugh. There is another song called ‘The internet is for Porn’. These puppets speak about the things we don’t want to talk about.”

How did you choose the cast – you have the puppet masters and then the actual normal acting cast?
Jaco:
“We had extensive auditions. We made everyone prepare a song like they usually do and then we threw them in the deep end during that audition and we asked them to sing the piece of music but as the puppet would. What was interesting was how actors could adapt to that challenge of having this character on their hand and how they had to bring it to life, it wasn’t about the actor but about the puppet taking the spot light. Some were able to make the puppet come to life beautifully and that’s how we got our cast. They all had to sing, act, dance and be puppeteers.”

“It’s not ventriloquism, it’s singing with the puppets in full view.”

Other, up and coming shows?
Jaco:
“We have 3 other projects coming into the Upstairs studio at Monte Casino for the rest of the year; very experimental.
We are doing a brand new adaptation of Peter and the Wolf. We are trying to give it a local flavor and change the story a ltttle. Nothing has been locked down yet, so for example we might turn Peter into a surfer dude. We are toying with that idea.”