DENISE NEWMAN

Newman grew up in the Athlone neighborhood of Cape Town. After graduating from Athlone High School in 1972, she moved to the United States to do a post-matric learnership. Newman returned to South Africa in 1974 to study social work and found a job at the housing office in Hanover Park. She discovered the Space Theatre, the only theatre in the country to have mixed casts and audiences without a permit, and was encouraged to work there by its director Brian Astbury. Newman worked by sweeping the floors and doing the actors' laundry before becoming a stage manager in 1979. Her first major acting role was in Political Joke, directed by Jean Naidoo and written by Peter Snyders.