Connections Plays 2012
Little Foot
by Craig Higginson
Thirty miles outside Johannesburg, a group of school friends decide to spend the night in a network of underground caves. The area is known as the Cradle of Humankind. The oldest pre-human remains have been found there, including a four million year-old ape-man called Little Foot.
As the friends go deeper underground, forces are unleashed between them and around them.
Part reality, part nightmare, South African playwright Craig Higginson's dark and poetic play takes us on an unforgettable journey into our unconscious ancestral memory.
Cast size 7 plus chorus
Age suitability 13-19
Craig Higginson
Craig Higginson is a novelist, playwright, theatre director, dramaturge, editor and university lecturer. His first play, Laughter in the Dark, an adaptation of Nabokov's novel, opened at the RSC in 2000. His first original play, Dream of the Dog, has been performed in South Africa at Grahamstown, the Market Theatre, the Hilton Festival and in the UK as the Finborough and Trafalgar Studios. The Girl in the Yellow Dress is Craig's second original play. It opened in Grahamstown in 2010, transferred to the Baxter Theatre (Cape Town), the Traverse Theatre (for the duration of the Edinburgh Festival), Live Theatre (Newcastle), the Citizens Theatre (Glasgow), the Stadsteater (Stockholm) and then the Market Theatre (Johannesburg). Craig co-wrote Truth in Translation and Ten Bush, both of which have toured widely internationally, and adapted and co-adapted several other works into plays for the Market Theatre. His version of The Jungle Book will be published by Oberon in 2011. Craig's published novels include The Hill (2005, Jacana), Last Summer (2010, Picador Africa) and The Landscape Painter (2011, Picador Africa).
He later adapted it as a radio play for BBC Radio 3. It won the Sony Gold Award for Best Radio Drama in the UK for 2004-5.
Directing highlights include Laughter in the Dark (RSC, co-director), Edward III (RSC, staged reading), Blood Wedding (Pegasus Theatre, Oxford), Grimm Tales (Market Theatre), Dream of the Dog (Hilton Festival and SAFM), The Perfect Circle (which he wrote for the Wits students) and The Jungle Book (Market Theatre).
Craig's writing and directing have been nominated for and won several awards in South Africa and the United Kingdom, including the Sony Gold Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First and a Naledi Award for Best New South African play. He is the Literary Manager and dramaturge at the Market Theatre and teaches playwriting at Wits. He is currently doing his PhD at Wits University.
