All the Music and Theatre Events on at Wits Theatre

The Wits Theatre Complex is where everyone from rising stars to local legends display their talents. Situated within the University of Witwatersrand and run by the university’s Performing Arts Administration, the theatre complex accommodates dance and theatrical showcases as well as live music from students at the university as well as professional companies, dance studios and schools.

About the Wits Theatre Complex

The theatre complex was originally opened in 1983 and consists of three separate venues: The Wits Theatre, which seats 367 audience members; the experimental Downstairs Theatre, which seats 110 audience members; and the 120-seater open-air Amphitheatre.

Before and after shows, guests can enjoy a snack or a drink in the complex’s bar and cafeteria areas. Note that for daytime shows, all visitors should park at the visitors parking on Yale Road at the Planetarium as the Station Street Entrance & Solomon Mahlangu visitors parking are only available from 5pm onwards.

What’s on at Wits Theatre

Australopithecus

Australopheticus is a satirical play inspired by some professors. In a 1936 Pretoria kitchen, Professor Robert Broom is conducting a ‘scientific’ experiment: his wife Mary’s soup on the left; a Korana skull in the middle; Black Damara feet on the right, Broom’s two-pot system.

When Prime Minister Smuts arrives to recruit him for an expedition to select Bushmen as “living fossil” displays, Broom proposes simply extending the two-pot system to the exhibition subjects once they die in the city.

Smuts is appalled but cannot satisfactorily explain why this differs from what Broom is already doing. It has fallen to Elisa Mokoena, the new housemaid, on her first day, to mind all three pots. She has been watching. She is done.

Australopithecus exposes the dehumanising logic of colonial anthropology and the way institutions simultaneously enable and disavow their own brutal practices.

Cost: R60pp to R100pp, book via Webtickets

When: Running from 20 to 24 May. Wednesday to Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 4pm
Where: Wits Downstairs Theatre, Wits Theatre Complex at University of Witwatersrand, 24 Station St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg

Antigone

Sean Mathias and Myer Taub present an adaptation Sophocles’ Antigone.

Originally commissioned by the Royal National Theatre for the Baxter Theatre production in 2005, this revival tells the story of Antigone’s defiance of a royal decree prohibiting the burial of her brother slain in a civil war.

Antigone’s defiance serves as the axis for a gritty enactment of age-old conflicts between rulers and their subjects, within families, between the sexes and across generations. Antigone is also an experimentation of the present in installation and performance redirected by Myer Taub (Dr) and students from the Theatre and Performance department, TAP and Wits School of Arts.

Cost: R60pp to R100pp, book via Webtickets

When: Running from 20 to 24 May. Wednesday to Friday at 7pm; Saturday at 3pm and 7pm & Sunday at 3pm
Where: Wits Amphitheatre, Wits Theatre Complex at University of Witwatersrand, 24 Station St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg

Wits Theatre The Brother Moves On | What's on in Joburg — The Brother Moves On

Wits Theatre presents a double bill: Shane Cooper and the Spirit Whisper & The Brother Moves On

Wits Theatre presents a special Africa Day double bill featuring prolific generational bassist Shane Cooper and his new ensemble Shane Cooper and the Spirit Whisper alongside Johannesburg’s live music institution The Brother Moves On.

Established in 2009, The Brother Moves On is a tradition-trouncing, transatlantic Afrocentric, futuristically ancient fusion project featuring Lungile Kunene (drums), Sakhile Nkosi (bass), Solethu Madasa (keys), Zelizwe Mthembu (guitar), Mthunzi Mvubu (flute and alto sax), Ofentse Sebola (tenor sax), Lebogang Komane (trumpet) and Siyabonga Mthembu (vocals).

For this Africa Day edition, the band performs music from Hedzoleh Sounds in celebration of Hugh Masekela’s journey to the home of funk.

Though the set that Shane Cooper and the Spirit Whisper have put together is being kept under wraps, the lineup for Shane Cooper’s brand-new ensemble features Shane Cooper (bass), Gontse Makhene (percussion), Vuyo Viwe (flute) and Sisonke Xonti (tenor sax).

Cost: From R300pp, book via Quicket

When: Saturday, 30 May 2026 from 6.30pm to 10.30pm
Where: Wits Theatre Complex at University of Witwatersrand, 24 Station St, Braamfontein, Johannesburg