Winston Ntshona

Winston Ntshona (6 October 1941 – 2 August 2018) was a South African actor and playwright born in Port Elizabeth. He is best known for his collaborative work with fellow South African artists John Kani and Athol Fugard, and for his Tony Award-winning Broadway appearances in 1974.

Ntshona attended Newell High School in Port Elizabeth, where he first met John Kani, who would become his longtime creative partner. From 1963 to 1972, he worked as a laboratory assistant in a timber factory. In 1967, he joined the Serpent Players drama group, which also included Kani and Fugard. Because all Black members of the group held daytime employment, rehearsals and workshops were scheduled in the evenings and on weekends. As the group's reputation grew, Ntshona eventually left the timber factory and became a full employee of the Serpent Players. Between 1967 and 1972, he appeared in more than 20 stage productions with the group.

In 1972–73, Ntshona appeared in Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, a play he co-wrote and which premiered at the Space Theatre in Cape Town. The work was critical of the apartheid government's pass laws. After an initial invitation to perform a single show in New York, the production traveled to Europe, completed a national tour of England, and ran for six weeks at London's Royal Court Theatre before returning to the United States for an extended Broadway run. Ntshona, Kani, and Fugard also co-wrote The Island in 1973, and both productions were brought to Broadway in 1974. For their performances in The Island and Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, Ntshona and Kani shared the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1975, a distinction that marked the first time Black actors had received that honor. Following the Broadway engagements, the Serpent Players returned to South Africa in 1976 and toured both productions in rural areas of the country, also conducting acting workshops along the way.

In October 1976, Ntshona and Kani were arrested by the Transkei government and held in solitary confinement for 15 days under Proclamation R.400. The order was issued by Minister of Justice George Matanzima, brother to Transkei Prime Minister Kaiser Matanzima, who characterized Sizwe Banzi Is Dead as containing inflammable, abusive, and vulgar subject matter.

Ntshona's screen career began when he and Kani were invited by producer Euan Lloyd to audition for a British film. He went on to play deposed President Julius Limbani, a character based on Moise Tshombe, in The Wild Geese (1978). In The Dogs of War (1980), he portrayed Dr. Okoye, a moderate political figure imprisoned by the dictator President Kimba of the fictional Republic of Zangaro. He also appeared in Ashanti (1979), the 1980 film version of Fugard's Marigolds in August, Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), A Dry White Season (1989), Night of the Cyclone (1991), The Power of One (1992), The Air Up There (1994), and Tarzan and the Lost City (1998). In 1979, he performed in Michael Hastings' monologue Full Frontal at the Royal Court Theatre in London.

In 2010, Ntshona received the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for his contributions to South African arts and culture. He died on 2 August 2018 following a lengthy illness, at the age of 76.