David Kramer

For forty years David Kramer’s interest and passion has been to explore South Africa’s identity and tell its stories in song.

He wrote six musicals with the late Taliep Petersen, their focus being on the retelling of the suppressed history of the Cape.
The musical Kat and the Kings achieved international success playing on Broadway and the West End. In 1999 it received the Laurence Olivier Award in London for Best New Musical.

Other international successes have been Ghoema (UK and Holland) Poison (Malaysia and UK) District Six (Scotland) and Koos Sas (UK).

Karoo Kitaar Blues, a project that originated as a series of concerts performed around South Africa. The concerts promoted the talents of eccentric guitar and tin-can violinists, later becoming the subject of an award-winning documentary.

David holds an honorary Doctorate of Literature from UCT and an honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Stellenbosch.

A recent career highlight (Oct 2014) was to be invited to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York, where together with an eight-piece band he showcased the music of the Cape.

In February 2015 he opened a new musical, Orpheus in Africa, which after a sold-out few weeks at the Fugard Theatre, returned for a second season to complete a twenty week run in January this year.