Tara is one of South Africa’s most celebrated young directors. At the age of 29, she is a celebrated independent director and producer, as well as Artistic Director of The Pink Couch, with a repertoire of award-winning and internationally travelling work under her belt. Tara has a BA in Theatre and Performance, majoring in Theatre Making, from the University of Cape Town, where she repeatedly was on the Dean’s Merit List and won the Class medal for her year. In 2010, Tara was awarded the Fleur du Cap Theatre Award Rosalie van der Gucht Prize for New Directors, and the Baxter Theatre/GIPCA/ Theatre Arts Admin Collective Emerging Theatre Director’s Bursary. In 2011 she was invited to the prestigious Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab to spend 3 weeks working with some of the world’s leading young directors in New York City, and in 2012 she was named one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans. Since then she has been nominated for Best Director at the Fleur du Cap Awards for …miskien and The Three Little Pigs, as well as received Best Production accolades for …miskien and The Three Little Pigs at Clover Aardklop and Woordfees respectively. She has three Silver and six Standard Bank Ovation Awards for various works presented at National Arts Festival under her belt. She has worked as the Project Manager for the annual Shakespeare season at Maynardville Open-Air Theatre from 2008 to 2013. She has also run the Cape Town Edge venue at National Arts Festival, Grahamstown as Programme Co-ordinator and Administrator from 2010 to the present. Since 2009, Tara has presented works at 45 festivals in 15 cities in 4 countries on 3 continents, but South Africa is her favourite. Her most lauded work includes …miskien, Mafeking Road, The Three Little Pigs, and Three Blind Mice for National Arts Festival Grahamstown’s Main Festival. She was recently Assistant Director of The Merry Widow of Malagawi, directed by Janice Honeyman, for Cape Town Opera, and will be assisting Matthew Wild with his production of Salome in March, also for Cape Town Opera. After that, she will be directing her first full scale opera, La Bohème, for Africa Arts in April.