Maynardville Open-Air Theatre, Open-air theatre in Wynberg, South Africa.
Maynardville Open-Air Theatre is an outdoor stage set inside a park in Wynberg, a suburb south of Cape Town's city centre. The seating area holds around 720 people and is arranged among trees and garden plantings that surround the stage on all sides.
The theatre opened in 1950 on the grounds of the former Maynard family estate, after philanthropist Margaret Molteno and local community members worked to convert the private land into a public performance space. What had been a private garden became a stage open to the city.
The venue is best known for its annual Shakespeare season, staged every summer under the open sky in the middle of a park. Watching a play here, with trees overhead and the night air around you, feels different from sitting in any indoor theatre.
The main season runs from January through March and covers theatre, orchestral concerts, and dance shows. Because everything takes place outside, it is worth bringing a warm layer as evenings can turn cool even in summer.
The theatre runs a training programme for recent graduates who want hands-on experience in technical theatre work, from lighting to sound and stage management. This means that on any given night, part of the crew behind the show may be at the very start of their professional life.
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