Alan Committie, a South African actor and comedian, claims that he always knew he wanted to perform and that his keen interest in humor helped him develop the great career he has today.
Committie discusses how he discovered he had a “funny bone” and made the decision to study theater on this week’s episode of the Indaba Show with Steven Taylor.
His eight-year run as the lead in the Broadway smash Defending the Caveman, in which he performed 963 times all throughout South Africa, has earned him widespread acclaim.
Committie was born in the Wynberg Military Hospital and is a native of Cape Town. He attended Vanderbijlpark Primary School before moving back to the Cape, where he attended Westerford High School.
When I was in standard five, or grade seven, I asked my parents whether I may pursue a theater education. They were excellent performers, but it was a bit unsettling to see the sadness on their faces. Actors who were better than I was at the time. But they were wonderful, and they helped me get through it. Even as a 12-year-old, I had made the decision to pursue teaching as a second profession, he said.
He completed a BA in performing arts at the University of Cape Town (UCT), as well as a teaching certificate and eight years of teaching.
At the age of 48, he has been in several well-known plays, musicals, television shows, and films, including the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. More recently, he appeared in the local Mnet detective series Recipes for Love and Murder.
Speaking about his comedy programs, he claims that although the most of them are family-friendly, he does like to experiment with topics.
“This idea of what you can and can’t say, I believe the comic has a responsibility to evaluate their own material, to push the envelope, but also to wonder whether what they say is appropriate. Are they speaking morally?