Signature Theatre is pleased to announce a “World of the Play” discussion for Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver on Saturday, September 15 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre Lobby at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42^nd Street between 9^th and 10^th Avenues). The event, which will be focused on post-apartheid South Africa, is free and open to the general public (no reservations required).

Signature Theatre’s “World of the Play” discussion series continues with a panel of experts discussing South Africa today. Eighteen years after the end of apartheid, where has the struggle for freedom taken this country and how far does it have to go to complete that transition? How has South Africa dealt with its past and what still needs to be done for it to move forward? Join us as we examine the urgent issues facing this country and how Athol Fugard confronts them in The Train Driver, including collective personal responsibility and the need to account for all, even the nameless ones.

BIOGRAPHIES FOR THE PANELISTS

BRIAN PHILLIPS (Moderator) is Co-Editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice, published by Oxford University Press. He is an independent human rights consultant, most recently for Equitas (formerly Canadian Human Rights Foundation), Amnesty International, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. From 2003 until 2006, he was Chair of the Oxford Brookes University MA program in Humanitarian and Development Practice and he worked for eleven years as a campaigner and educator for Amnesty International in London. During 2001-2002, he was a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow (Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, UK).

PENELOPE ANDREWS (Panelist) is the President and Dean of Albany Law School. Previously Andrews was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law. Andrews, who was born and raised in South Africa, has taught at law schools in Germany, Australia, Holland, Scotland, Canada and South Africa. In 2005 she was a finalist for a vacancy on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the country’s highest court on constitutional matters, and has consulted for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, and for the Ford Foundation in Johannesburg, where she evaluated labor law programs.

DONNA KATZIN (Panelist) is Executive Director of Shared Interest, a social investment fund that raises and utilizes grant and loan capital for equitable and sustainable development in South and Southern Africa. To date Shared Interest has benefited more than 2 million low-income black South Africans. Previously she was Director of South Africa and International Justice Programs for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and she directed the New Jersey Human Rights Department for District 65, UAW. She is a board member of the Thembani International Guarantee Fund and Housing for HIV in South Africa, and Bend the Arc and the Tzedec Economic Development Fund in the U.S.

TEBOHO MOJA (Panelist) is the Professor of Higher Education at NYU’s Steinhardt School. Moja has held key positions at several South African universities including chair of the Board of Trustees to the University of South Africa. She was instrumental in setting up the Center for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) in South Africa and served on the boards international bodies such as the UNESCO-Institute for international Education Planning and the World Education Market. She was the Executive Director and Commissioner to the National Commission on Higher Education appointed by President Mandela and before coming to NYU, Teboho Moja served as a Special Advisor to two Ministers of Education.