Have you ever visited the theatre and the fruit and vegetable market at the same time? Well, now you can as there's a new theatre in town, and various thespians have already flocked to the exciting new venue, The Blik, which opened its doors last Saturday.
The vibrant and classy 300-seater theatre is tucked away at the popular Cape Town Market and Epping Paradise Traders Market at 110 Gunners Circle in Epping.
The launch of the venue also tied in with the opening night of David Kramer's Ver In Die Wêreld Kittie production.
Brought to life by a stellar cast, the production features Dean Balie as Koos Heuningbek, Rushney Ferguson as Kittie Jaftha, Jenny Stead as Rosa de Miranda and Andre Terblanche as Josef Marais.
The Weekend Argus caught up with Igor Boonzaaier, who co-owns the venue with Warren Jacobs. They are also both directors of the Epping Paradise Hawkers Market (EPHM).
“Cape Town Market (CTM) leases 30 hectares of land from the City of Cape Town (CCT). The EPHM and The Blik were constructed on a portion of this land, in partnership with the CCT and the Epping Paradise Hawkers (EPH), each partner making a contribution of some kind,” explained Boonzaaier on the origins of the theatre.
“This land is managed by a company jointly owned by CTM and EPH, and is subsidised by CTM until able to trade profitably. In essence, while it is managed by us, it is a City asset.”
The structure of the venue and its location is a main attraction, with the entrance of the property greeting visitors with a fresh fruit and vegetable experience, giving off a “Bo-Kaap” feeling; and then as you drive along, you are greeted by the theatre with a more European style to the structure, with textures of tin from the outside.
Theatre lovers can enjoy a cosy evening in the soft seats and colours of warm tones inside the venue
On weekdays, CTM trades from 4.30am to 10pm – the rest of the time the trading floor is not in use. When CTM renewed its lease agreement with the City, they made it clear that they needed to sweat the asset to have more beneficial use from it.
“When we built the Traders Market we had the idea to create an environment which would be conducive for the establishment of a morning market, such as in a city like Barcelona, where people can come together over weekends to do their shopping, but also find entertainment. So it made sense to build The Blik adjacent to the Traders Market,” said Boonzaaier.
The owners agree that the advantage of having the theatre in this particular space is to give access to people from the Cape Flats, the target market.
Boonzaaier said: “We envisage a scenario where families will come to the Traders Market on a Saturday/ Sunday morning, catch a quick show, have a coffee, biryani and koeksisters, and then buy their fruit and veg on their way home.
“Our focus will be to produce shows that will reflect Cape culture that the local population can identify with.”
When asked if the venue is open for bookings to public productions, Boonzaaier was adamant.
“No, the venue is not open for bookings by people who want to stage shows there. We will choose which productions we bring to the Blik and when.
“In a sense it’s a bit selfish, but for now we don’t want to throw it completely open, but over time we may be convinced to change our point of view. Since running a theatre is not our core business, we want to take it slow and not get ahead of ourselves. What I can say is that we are in conversation with a few local artists to bring a new show towards October/November.”
