The Reps Theatre in Harare has unveiled a busy theatre season. The theatre opened its 2012 season in the first week of January with a place "Boeing Boeing" directed by Zane Lucas. This will be followed by a music revue show featuring music of the 60s, 70 and 80s and directed by Stan Higgins.

The show opens on February 16, and exactly a month later Reps Theatre Upstairs will stage "Colder than Water", which is directed by Graham Crutchley.

The month of April will be devoted to a production by the youths of the Reps Theatre - the Rep Teens, while the first week of May will be devoted to Hifa 2012 theatre programme.

Soon after Hifa, Reps Theatre Upstairs will present Danai Gurira's "Eclipsed"- a story of five women caught up in the Liberian civil war.

This will be followed by "One Hit Wonders"- a music and dance piece "paying homage to all those musicians who only had one hit song".

In July, Reps Theatre will present a comedy entitled "Leading Ladies" while in August the theatre will present a stage version of the movie classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".

In September, Reps Theatre is scheduled to present William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" which is an A-Level textbook for its school audience.

Blessing Hungwe - the founder and artistic director of NKM Theatre Initiative - says his play "Portraits" will be premiered on March 8.

The play, expected to coincide with the International Women's Day, will be the organisation's theatre collaborative effort with Sabina Mutswatii - a fashion designer who will also launch a fashion show on the same day.

"Portraits" is a story of three women who tell portraits of their lives as girls, wives, mothers and breadwinners."

NKM Theatre Initiative hopes to unveil at Hifa in May, Blessing Hungwe's new play entitled "When Angels Weep".

The theatre group hopes that this play will match the power, impact and popularity of their "Burn Mukwerekwere Burn" which was world premiered last year.

Hungwe also said he will take a trip to Bulawayo in September "on a collaborative initiative with a two-hander whose script is in progress."

The play earmarked for Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo theatre programme scheduled for the end of September.

Chipawo World, which won the Henrik Ibsen Award last year, will in March run a two-week workshop in Harare for theatre companies of young people from Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The workshop which will be hosted by Chipawo Zimbabwe will be the main activity in the implementation of Chipawo World's Interrogating Ibsen in Southern Africa Project which entails the three theatre companies of young people working on Ibsen's "Ghosts", "Dolls House" and "The Enemy of the People".

The three companies will go back to their respective countries where they would be expected to take comprehensive performance tours of their respective countries with what they would have worked on at the Harare workshop.

Chipawo will feature its New Horizon Theatre Company in this project.

It is expected that this project will lead to the hosting of an Ibsen Theatre Festival in one the Southern African countries the following year.

Arts Lab which was launched last year under the leadership of Melissa Eveleigh in collaboration with Savanna Trust has also unveiled a very active theatre schedule that includes continued training and experimentation.

Meeting three times a week the artistes will create new work and comic sketches to build up the repertoire of Arts Lab associated artistes.

The participants in Arts Lab's pilot project of 2011, are this year involved in developing individual projects which range from "facilitating youth rehabilitation through theatre; a women rights programme; girls empowerment plays for schools, HIV and Aids action through theatre; to dramatisation of school curriculum textbooks.

"Arts Lab will provide guidance on fund-raising and on the promotion of performance tours of these projects. A Tumbuka Dance Company member and a theatre practitioner will collaborate with Arts Lab in launching a weekly community arts club in five high-density suburbs of Harare.

The organisation has begun devising a "dance-visual theatre" production on waste and illegal disposal or dumping of waste in Africa.

The organisation hopes to take this production to the Grahamstown Festival in South Africa as a co-production with Savanna Trust and Tumbuka Dance Company.

Cont Mhlanga, the founder and director of the Amakhosi Cultural Centre in Bulawayo, has unveiled a very ambitious 2012 Amakhosi theatre programme that has begun with the opening of its production department for stage, screen and radio plays.

Mhlanga stresses the aspirations of Amakhosi saying: "As we launch the department that was affected by economic meltdown of the past 12 years paramount to us is to take this opportunity to correct the serious misconception that when a production is labelled Amakhosi, it should have been created and produced by Cont Mhlanga.

"This should not be the case because this would mean that Amakhosi should die the day Cont Mhlanga dies.

"Amakhosi is a household brand in Zimbabwe and Amakhosi Cultural Centre is an institution whose mandate is to provide skills and production support to Zimbabwe creative talent particularly the young and the budding as a way of setting them up in the creative industries.

It is Amakhosi's target this year to support, produce and present at Amakhosi Cultural Centre and in various venues arts products of repute, which have nothing to do with Cont.

However, works by Cont Mhlanga - one each for stage, radio and television will be produced and presented alongside with several presentations by very upcoming and established well known creative artists."

Mhlanga has theatre artistes in Bulawayo to audition for his play "Inyelane" - a historical epic drama about "Queen Lozikeyi of the Amandebele and the arrival of Cecil John Rhodes and Alfred Beit's Pioneer Column in 1890 in this country".

He has also invited artistes to audition for parts in his television drama series "Beloved Country" set in the fictitious Republic of Nyaminyami.

Amakhosi Arts Academy has begun enrolling individuals who want to train in different performing and media arts. Enrolment ends on February 3 and training starts on the 6th.