Bio
Mbongeni Ngema is a South African writer, lyricist, composer, director, theatre producer and actor best known as the writer of the internationally acclaimed and award-winning musical Sarafina!, which was nominated for five Tony Awards.
The musical won 11 NAACP Image Awards, enjoyed a two-year run on Broadway, toured the USA, Europe, Australia and Japan and was later adapted into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo and Miriam Makeba.
Ngema created a string of blockbusters that include the iconic play Woza Albert!, which he co-wrote with Percy Mtwa and Barney Simon; Township Fever (1990), which travelled from the Market Theatre to the USA's Brooklyn Academy of Music's Majestic Theatre; Mama (1995); Asinamali (1996); Maria Maria (1997); The Zulu – the musical (1999); 1906 Bhambada The Freedom Fighter; The House of Shaka (2005); and The Lion of the East (2006).
In 2006 he played the role of Bra Stone in the Heartlines film that aired on the SABC.
In 2015 he landed his first starring role in television in the e.tv telenovela Gold Diggers. In it, he plays the lead character of Patrick Gumede, an ageing and ill miner who has two wives and all the headaches that go with them.
He died on Wednesday 27 December 2023 in a car accident in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. He was 68.