Discover the NTN with a Free Theatre Tour

There’s a game the National Theatre of Namibia’s (NTN) public relations officer Desiree Mentor likes to play.

She walks through the halls of Namibia’s largest theatre, scans the walls searching for the date on the vintage posters, trying to find the oldest one. Mentor reckons the most aged one she’s seen is from the mid-70s, so during the NTN’s free theatre tours, she asks patrons to spot one that’s even more of an ancestor.

It’s a deep dive into the theatre’s history. As patrons peruse the posters, noting the dates, the directors, performers and the plays, they honour the theatremakers who once called the stage home.

It’s the kind of simple magic Mentor hopes to impart to the Namibian public through the theatre’s free tours aimed at introducing locals and tourists to the institution. A place Mentor didn’t even know existed when she applied for a job there and had to come in for an interview.

“I absolutely fell in love with the place,” she says, adding that, as a theatre employee, no day is the same as the space evolves to suit various productions, projects and personalities.

Home to such developmental projects as Theatre Zone, Premier Productions, the Golden Pen Playwright Competition and the stage of the Namibian Theatre and Film Awards as well as a place of rehearsal in the famous green and dance rooms, the NTN is known to some but perhaps not to as many as the art of theatre deserves.

“The free theatre tours are a celebration of the theatre and a project aimed at building theatre culture,” says Mentor, who describes the institution as a national treasure that has hosted people from all over the world.

“The theatre is not just a building and it goes beyond acting. There are so many stories and legacies. Here is a space where I am allowed to either come to enjoy and be entertained or where I am allowed, as a theatremaker, to tell and present my story. I can perform it, dance through it or sing through it.”

With the tours offering insight into theatre culture, etiquette and the various theatre jobs integral to staging productions, the NTN hopes to spark further understanding of the space and is particularly interested in hosting school and student groups as well as budding theatremakers and enthusiasts.

An introduction initiative and fact-finding mission, the tours are also an opportunity for the theatre to meet members of the public who may have insight into the institution.

“We’re looking into digitising all the posters and we’d also like to encourage people, if they have old articles about the theatre and the productions, to bring those through so we can digitise them,” says Mentor. “We want to get information in so one day we can have a complete history of the theatre and build that archive.”

Available free for groups of seven or more, the NTN theatre tours are a gateway to discovering the charm of theatre not to be missed.