Artscape Theatre Centre

Artscape Theatre Centre (formerly Nico Malan Theatre Center) is the main performing arts centre in Cape Town, South Africa. It was opened in 1971 and is located on reclaimed land in the Foreshore area. The inaugural performance was scheduled to be Verdi's Aida but illnes struck the title-role singer Emma Renzi and the production was replaced by CAPAB Ballet's Sylvia. Other productions in the opening season were Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in Afrikaans and Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The complex includes:

  • Opera House, seating 1,487 with provision for two wheelchairs.
  • Theatre, seating 540 but more or less depending upon whether the pit is used.
  • Arena Theatre, seating 140.

The Artscape Theatre Centre was formerly known as the Nico Malan theatre complex, after the former National Party administrator of the Cape Province, Dr Johannes Nicholas Malan, who initiated the project. The centre was renamed in March 2001, when the Artscape company replaced the former Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB).

The Artscape Theatre Centre is also the home of Fine Music Radio.

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