Inala Theatre is an exciting collective of South African artists brought together by a shared commitment to quality theatre for all ages. Combining their skills in Bunraku puppetry, object theatre, clowning, and African music, they explore the power of the imagination to transform the everyday into the magical. Dedicated to intensive research with their target age groups, Inala’s original productions find unique ways to meet their young audiences eye-to-eye, mind-to-mind. As one of the first companies in South Africa to create work for pre-verbal audiences, they have played a pioneering role in the burgeoning Theatre for Early Years industry.

The team came together in early 2013 as Pillow Fort Theatre, when they were selected as the only non-European company worldwide to receive Small Size Seed Funding from the European Union. From this Patchwork was born, which went on to tour nationally and globally, and was awarded Best International Performance at the 2015 International Festival of Theatre for Children and Youth in Iran. Inala’s latest production is a Bunraku puppetry piece called Lumka, which has just returned from representing South Africa at the BRICS Festival in Dagestan, Russia. Inala has won multiple Fleur du Cap Awards, the most recently for Lumka in 2020 for Best Production for Children and Young People.

The Inala team are  Roshina Ratnam, Asanda Rilityana, Joanna Evans and Pedro Espi-Sanchis.