Tutor
Trained at RADA, Sibu is a highly successful actor, writer and tutor in the UK, South Africa the USA.
Sibusiso Mamba was born in the Kingdom of Swaziland on 27th April 1978. He was, and still is, the only student to have ever gained admission to the Royal Academey of Dramatic Art, in London (RADA) through a satellite link audition. He graduated from RADA in 2002.
He is an actor, playwright, screenwriter and producer. He has co-created and written for many television series in South Africa, including, Isidingo, Bay of Plenty, Hope Springs, Shadows of Justice, After Nine, Zero Tolerance and Iyakhuluma (co-created with Geoff Newton). He has also written two radio plays for the BBC: Taxi, for BBC Radio 4 (Published by Aurora Metro Press in 2006 and Oxford University Press in 2007) and Sagila, for the BBC World Service, which was Play of the Week in March 2006. As an actor his theatrical roles include Othello in Othello, Brutus in Julius Caesar, Prospero in The Tempest, Oscar in Edward Albee’s The Lady From Dubuque, Johnny in Athol Fugard’s Nongogo. Television and film roles include, Siphiwe in Isidingo, Father Ndlovu in Richard E Grant’s Wah-Wah, Rick in Coronation Street: Out of Africa and The Other Man in Savo Tufegdzic’s Crime: It’s A Way Of Life. And for radio, he has played Senzo in his own play Taxi, Mafa in his other play Sagila, Solomon Singo in Carl Grose’s 49 Donkeys Hanged for BBC Radio 3 and Baba in Mike Mware’s Mandida’s Shoes for BBC African Performance. Most recently he has played Vavi in his latest play Midnight Train to Sunrise (formerly titled Train to 2010), at Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey. Sibusiso’s first play was written while he was a student at RADA. The play was called Just You and Me and was read as part of the Old Vic Theatre London’s “New Voices Season”. As a a result of this play, he was commissioned by the Royal National Theatre to write a new play. The play was Rites of Passage and it led to a residency at the National Theatre Studio in 2004. This was followed by three plays (Liferites: Emmanuel, Isaac and Dzeli) for Chalkfoot Theatre Arts, a touring theatre company in the UK, in 2005.
Sibusiso lived in Johannesburg from 2005 to 2008 where he was writer-in-residence on the television series, Isidingo on SABC 3. He also co-founded, with Geoff Newton, a production company that produced the series Innocent Times for MNET Television. In 2006 and 2007 he was Associate Lecturer for Drama at the University of Witwatesrand in Johannesburg.
He is Guest Artist at the annual Rutgers Summer Acting Conservatory (RSAC) in New Jersey, where he devises and directs students in short plays inspired by the numerous works of William Shakespeare. He is a Patron of Interactive Themba Theatre, South Africa: an organisation that uses theatre to combat stigma, create dialogue and influence behavioural change with regards to HIV/AIDS.
