THEATRE VERSUS OPPRESSION
Registered Charity SC039092
Using applied theatre to bring about positive change and development

Gavin Peter (Theory X)
Actor, Teacher & Director

Born in the city of Kitwe, in the Zambian Copperbelt, Gavin hails from a dramatic heritage. Guided by charismatic parents and gifted brothers, he began performing on stage at age seven. Alongside his study of languages, namely French, English and Latin in which he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, Gavin consolidated his performance skills with diplomas in Acting, Public Speaking and Recital from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He is currently studying for his Masters degree in Education through the University of Tasmania in Australia.

After many years of amateur theatre, where he played roles as varied as King Duncan in Macbeth and Hamlet's Ophelia, Gavin turned professional with the internationally acclaimed theatre troupe Over the Edge, a group he had co-founded several years earlier.

He found solo and ensemble acclaim through their many successful productions, which include political satires, full length self-penned pantomimes, one act dramas and comedies, and most particularly, for his role as Olivia in their version of Twelfth Night, which has toured Edinburgh, Boston, New York, Germany and the Bath Shakespeare Festival to great acclaim.

Gavin has had the opportunity to direct and produce many plays, including West Side Story, The Glass Menagerie, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Royal Hunt of the Sun and Our Town, as well as many, many African and original scripts.

For ten years, under the patronage of the infamous Clive Barnes, Gavin ran a creative and cultural programme at Prince Edward High School in Harare, Zimbabwe. As Director of Cultural Activities, he developed and organised internal, inter-school, regional, provincial and even national cultural activities over several disciplines, including public speaking, drama, poetry and debate. In 2003 Gavin was appointed as the Director of Theatre Arts at the Harare International School, where he currently teaches the Middle and High School programme and the Theatre Arts programme for completion of the International Baccalaureate Diploma.

Most recently Gavin directed his first professional production, Colours by renown playwright Rory Kilalea. This one woman show highlighted three areas very important to Gavin, living with HIV, women and the story of the coloured people of Zimbabwe and received great critical and public acclaim. Together with fellow Over the Edge members, he helped create  Zimbabwe’s first post-graduate school of theatre, Theory X. In June 2006 he represented Zimbabwe at the World Theatre Sports Cup Finals in Germany.

Gavin lives in Harare with his family, friends, dogs, music and imaginary friends. He lives by the beliefs that there is no day but today; that theatre is our most basic and highest art and that education is the only way – knowledge is the key.