Greetings, musical theatre aficionados! If you’re a regular at Musical Cyberspace, you’ll know that we love celebrating the brilliance of industry personalities from musical theatre stages around the world – especially when a birthday or anniversary comes along. In today’s “Saturday List,” we fete the South African musical theatre performer Schoeman Smit as he celebrates another trip around the sun! Hailing from the theatre-rich country of South Africa, Smit is more than one of this country’s premier character actors; he’s an artist who sprinkles finesse over every role he plays. Join us as we raise the curtain on his greatest triumphs, a celebration as rich and diverse as the roles he breathes life into. From the grand stages of the Artscape Opera House or the Teatro at Montecasino to the intimate corners of the Alexander Bar and Theatre or the Avalon Theatre at the Homecoming Centre, Schoeman Smit’s performances are a testament to his craft. So, warm up those vocal cords and get ready to harmonise in celebration of a South African performer who is effortlessly containing the legacy of a family steeped in the magic of the arts.

10. The Nose: A Preposterous Family Musical

With a book, music and lyrics by Kit Goldstein Grant, The Nose is a whimsical adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s beloved tale of Kovalyov’s nose, which leaps off his face and runs riot as in St Petersburg as an officious official. Under the direction of Margot Wood for Anex Theatre Productions at the Artscape Theatre Centre’s Arena, Schoeman Smit played the role of the Doctor, a city practitioner with his roots in the provinces, and just about stole the show with his number, ““Turpentine, Lard and Soap.” Local critic Robyn Cohen said that he stopped the show in her review, adding, ‘I don’t understand why we haven’t seen more of him in high-profile mainstream productions.’ This was back in 2018, not long after Smit, who had done a fair deal of international music tours earlier in his career settled back down into a refocused theatrical career in Cape Town – so there was much more to come!

9. Camelot

One of the trends we’ll see in this column is Smit’s ability to take a couple of lines and create a memorable cameo role, much as he did in the role of Squire Dap in Camelot. Donning a jaunty French accent as he trailed after Lyle Buxton’s Lancelot, he delivered what Gisele Turner called a ‘delightfully adroit’ turn in what was a glorious show on the whole. This one was directed by Steven Stead (who doubled his duties in a memorable star-turn as Arthur) for KickstArt at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre in Durban. It is a pity South African audiences weren’t able to see this grand romantic classic by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe elsewhere in the country.

8. Evita

In 2019, Smit went off to China to tour in Evita, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera about Eva Peron, the infamous Argentinian hustler who dabbled in acting, political activism and philanthropy. Following a stop in Wuhan not too long before the first cases of COVID-19 were identified, the cast was able to make it home in time before everyone’s lives changed forever in 2020 – a cloud that hangs over what must have been an amazing opportunity to appear in the original Harold Prince staging of the show. Smit appeared in the ensemble of this show, also understanding the principal role of Che.

7. The Sound of Music

Smit is currently appearing in The Sound of Music and this is his latest appearance in a long line of Franzes – more of that later! This is another Steven Stead-directed piece and the Pieter Toerien Productions and Cape Town Opera co-production has been praised for its fresh take on the material, with Stead working meticulously with the cast to create characters that feel so wonderfully human in a show that is more often than not done in a very paint-by-numbers way. As the Franz, Smit pops up all over the place, opening doors and delivering drinks, often with a zesty one-liner. It’s all fun and games until it becomes clear he’s been drinking the Kool-Aid of the new regime. One wonders where drinking all of that Anschluss-champagne got him in the end – spin-off, anyone?

6. Picture Incomplete

The show so nice he did it twice! Picture Incomplete was something of a milestone for Smit, in that it also represented an early foray into producing theatre. It was also the birth of his boutique production company, Dal Segno Theatre, which was co-founded by me – see the disclaimer at the end of this column! I directed Smit the second time he did this show, which was an authorised localisation of a solo American musical by Trent Armand Kendall and Michael Polese. We’re quite proud of this show, which holds a rating of 4½ stars out of five on the Alexander Bar and Theatre’s archival site, based on reviews collected by the theatre from its patrons. One such patron, known only as Jeannine, called the show ‘a wonderful, poignant, yet amusing, look at real life.’ Truth be told, I miss hearing the songs from the score of this show!

5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Fans of this show will know that late in Act II, one of the characters is locked away in Fogg’s Asylum, which leads to a daring rescue mission through the dank corridors of this dark precursor of our modern psychiatric hospitals. Even today, people remember Smit’s arm-swinging lunatic - a great moment in a show that was full of great moments just like it. Under the direction of Steven Stead, this was a reminder that serious musical theatre performed by a virtuoso cast (led here by Jonathan Roxmouth and Charon Williams-Ros) can draw an audience in South Africa – may we see many more like it!

4. The Producers 

Like most middle children, Smit’s second Franz got our attention. The Producers, which was produced by Pieter Toerien Productions, tragically had to shut down in the middle of the first leg of its tour due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But before that fateful day, Smit stormed the stage as Franz Liebkind of “Old Bavaria”, expert “Guten Tag Hop-Clop” dancer and dramatist épouvantable. In Weekend Special, Karen Rutter said that Smit was fervently hilarious in what she predicated to the the ‘best musical of the year,’ even though it was only February. Her prediction came true, as it turned out, but not for the reasons she thought. While it certainly would have been ‘an extremely hard act to beat,’ it was the devastation heaped on the world by the pandemic that made this vision come to pass.

3. Rock of Ages 

Rock of Ages gifted Smit with his OG Franz, for which he earned the first of his two Naledi Theatre Award nominations. (The second was for a dramatic role in Love! Valor! Compassion!) This jukebox musical was directed by Elizma Badenhorst for VR Theatrical and starred a host of South African performers, like Craig Urbani, Claire Taylor, Zak Hendricks and Natasha van der Merwe, and each giving stand-out performances in their respective roles, as was highlighted by Masego Panyane in her IOL review of the show. Neels Clasen and Smit played stuck-up father-and-son development team and it was a delight when Smit broke loose in a zebra-stiped mankini to sing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

2. Devil Song: a Cabaret of Villainous Proportions

Last year, Smit produced Devil Song under his Dal Segno banner, a cabaret inspired by the seven deadly sins and which included material written for Audra McDonald to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Included here was the moving “I Eat” by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens and Jeff Blumenkrantz’s hilarious “My Book,” both of which Smit went on to perform at Cape Town’s monthly Musical Mondays concerts at The Outlore. He also performed extracts from South African and world literature, from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Stoker and Wodehouse. Writing for Theatre Scene Cape Town, Barbara Loots wrote that ‘his delivery of Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” monologue from Hamlet in Afrikaans is an emotional power-punch: he makes you invest in the character more in but a few minutes, than some actors manage to achieve throughout a whole performance of the play’ and that overall, ‘he impressively flexes his theatrical muscles.’ I directed this piece and we had hoped, along with pianist Ian Bothma and the design team of Widaad Albertus, Tara Notcutt and Melissa George, to create a literate, atmospheric and thought-provoking cabaret. I believe we did – and I say that with no immodesty.

1. Sinbad the Sailor

Once again under the direction of Steven Stead, Smit showed another thread of his vast range of skills when he played the pantomime dame, Donna Kebab, in this 2023 romp through the legendary tales of Sinbad, the legend of the seven seas. Playing the mother of the leading man, Smit reminded audiences that her “Milkshake” brought all the boys to the yard and damn right, it was a great deal of fun. In his review of the show, Bruce Denill cited ‘Smit’s strong physical comedy skills’ as one of the factors that made his appearances in the show ‘consistently comical.’ Gotta love an alliterative moment! More poignantly, Smit posted this message on his Instagram account in the final week of the show’s performances:

So in my final week as Dame Donna Kebab in SINBAD THE SAILOR, there is one final person I want to mention. My finale headdress was made for Tobie Cronjé for a production at the State Theatre many moons ago.It was a nice to know that the I had something with me for every show that was made for THE MOTHERSHIP DAME. THE DAME OF ALL DAMES!!! I loved Donna and I hoped you loved her a little toooo.

Schoeman Smit, Instagram

What a link to the great legacy of South African theatre!

In the grand finale of this birthday celebration, we’ve unwrapped just a few layers of Schoeman Smit’s career. In addition to performing, he is also a much-loved vocal coach, with a particular speciality in vocal rehabilitation, and has recently mentored a host of up-and-coming theatre practitioners as a part of the Creative Careers Acceleration Programme. As the curtain falls on this showcase of his career highlights, let’s cheerfully hum the tunes from these great shows as we head out into the weekend. Bravissimo, Schoeman! May your future roles be as enchanting as the ones we’ve celebrated today.

Disclaimer: I can never claim objectivity about Schoeman Smit’s work on stage because of our personal relationship off of the stage – we’re married! – and that’s not even getting into the fact that I’ve directed him in two productions. That’s why I’ve pulled so many quotes about his work from other sources, rather than offering any kind of critical comment of my own. I hope you’ll read this week’s column in the spirit it was intended, a celebration of Schoeman’s work and by extension, of the work of all of the people he has worked alongside in the South African theatre industry. Happy birthday, husband!