Locally produced production Calling Us Home- The Musical, has announced the first multi-country tour in 2025.
The first leg of the tour graces home soil and settles in Durban where fans will be treated to the new grand-scale musical opera.
The production was previously staged in 2023 in Cape Town, drawing critical and audience acclaim.
Built in Africa, ‘Calling Us Home’ is written and composed by Cape Town-based composer Alice Gillham and directed by the award-winning American director Peter Flynn. Flynn will be the first American director to tour an original full-scale musical into Southern Africa.
Flynn said he was embraced by the local theatre community.
“The South African theatre community is among the most generous and welcoming with whom I’ve worked.
“Spending time with them altogether in the same room while investigating this beautiful story confirmed all my first impressions. I’m excited, moved and very grateful.”
Calling Us Home tells the story of the heart-wrenching journey of Grace an African princess, who flees a devastating war in her homeland, and seeks hope in a dangerous new world. She arrives penniless in the freezing, grimy docklands of an American city.
Here, the underworld is ruled by the evil gang lord Ivan who, after an unexpected encounter, has set his sights on Grace - her spectacular beauty has dazzled him. But another has already captured her heart.
Gillham told the Weekend Argus that the production was birthed from a longing while she was on a trip in London.
“I was walking along a street in London, when I realised that so many of the faces that I was seeing were from somewhere else. It struck me that in today’s world so many of us are from somewhere else but that we are all seeking the feeling of being ‘home’.
“The story of Calling Us Home begins from these questions: Is home a place? A person? A state of being?
“ Calling Us Home is really, at its core, a love story. It begins in Africa, amid a brewing conflict that disrupts its heroine’s life - Grace. She has to leave her home and try to start a new life in a new country and we follow her intensely human, very emotional journey.
“That pretext in itself is so true for so many and my hope was that the story would quickly become the story of every person who has experienced the challenges of displacement, irrespective of where they come from. I also hoped that the audience would see, experience and appreciate the courage, resilience and compassion shown by Grace and other characters in the story.
“We need these things so that we can understand and support those of us who are experiencing the loneliness and hardships and the deprivation that displacement and unrest can bring.
“I must also mention that collaborating with US Director Peter Flynn has been a very meaningful part of bringing this production to life. He brings incredible sensitivity, personal insight and artistic authenticity to his approach. Together with a truly international creative team, he has staged Calling Us Home with deep empathy - which has been a privilege to be a part of.
Calling Us Home brings a truly African story to the global stage, with universal themes of love, loss, hope, and courage.
Tour dates and ticket sales are yet to be announced.
Weekend Argus