Mike Van Graan

His current works are HUMANS OF THE STREETS in which three people who once lived on the streets of Cape Town, tell their moving, real-life stories; PET-FRIENDLY, a piece of stand-up commentary that uses our love for animals to make broader social commentary and HELEN OF TROYEVILLE, a solo show that interrogates the intersection between privilege and poverty in contemporary South Africa.

His recent works include TO LIFE, WITH LOVE (premiered at Artscape on 4 February 2025), I CAN BUY MYSELF FLOWERS (premiered at the Drama Factory on 6 February 2025), SO OVER THE RAINBOW (premiered in the last week of April 2025) and THE GOOD WHITE which premiered on 1 May at The Suidooster Festival before transferring to the Market Theatre from 8 May 2025. OLD KING COAL, also produced in 2025, is a commission from an NGO, Life After Coal, that invites audiences to debate post-coal economies and social relations.

Mike also has a scripted dialogue - ABRAHAM's PROMISES - in which representatives of the Abrahamic faiths debate the role of religion in Middle East conflicts and possible likely scenarios.  His most recent satirical one-hander - MY FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS - won the performer, Kim Blanche Adonis, the Toyota US Woordfees Best Solo Award (October 2023) and the Best Solo Performance award at the inaugural Independent Theatre Awards (February 2024) where it also won the Best New Script award.  MY FELLOW SOUTH AFRICANS was awarded a Standard Bank Bronze Ovation Award at the 2024 National Arts Festival.  It was performed more than 170 times around the country, most recently at the Karoo Art Hotel in Barrydale (14 May 2026).     

In addition to writing plays, Mike has extensive experience in cultural policy, building artists' networks both locally and across the African continent, and in advocacy.  He has served as the Secretary General of Arterial Network, as the Director of the African Arts Institute and the Coordinator of the Sustaining Theatre and Dance (STAND) Foundation.  In May 2024, he completed a 3-month writer's residency at the University of the Free State where he wrote a play, THE GOOD WHITE, set against the backdrop of the Rhodes/Fees Must Fall campaigns. 

This play will be co-produced by the Market Theatre (Johannesburg) and Die Suidoosterfees (Cape Town). He also used the time to update his 2014 script, RETURN OF THE ANCESTORS to 2024, the production of which was done with Bloemfontein-based actors and which had a short run at The Wave Theatre in Cape Town.  Mike is currently concentrating on building a sustainable theatre practice as a writer/producer while also engaged in activities related to the Palestinian Arts and Culture Solidarity Collective (PACSOC), an informal network that seeks to support the Palestinian creative sector at this time when Palestinians as a whole are facing the most brutal existential assault by Israel and its liberal democracy enablers.