Donald Molosi is a multi-award-winning classically-trained actor, and writer, from Mahalapye, Botswana where he was born on December 11, 1985. He divides his time between the Botswana and the United States where he performs in Hollywood and Broadway projects. Some of his Broadway credits include Damn Yankees (2004) and MOTSWANA: Africa, Dream Again (2012), while some of his Hollywood include Green Zone (2007) with Academy-Award winner Matt Damon and Breakfast in Hollywood (2006) with Award-Winning actor Paul Boocock of Law and Order fame. The New York Times has reviewed Molosi’s work and called his performances “inflamed with passion,” particularly his heart-wrenching portrayal of a Ugandan child soldier in his one-man show, No Idea (2010). In a 2012 interview with the BBC, Molosi described his work as “critical love letters” to humanity.
As a child growing up in Botswana, Molosi demonstrated a natural performance flair and by the time he was 16 he was already touring arts festivals such as the National Arts Festival (Grahamstown, South Africa), Mafikeng Schools Festival (Mafikeng, South Africa) and Maitisong Festival (Gaborone, Botswana) with The Company at Maitisong, one of Botswana’s leading theater companies through which Molosi also co-wrote plays. Simultaneously, Molosi became the youngest person on the airwaves during his time as radio announcer at Yarona FM. Television followed a few months later when Molosi partnered with UNICEF and joined what would be Botswana’s first set of child presenters on Botswana Television. In accordance with the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, Molosi popularized the International Children’s Day of Broadcasting to empower other youth to be heard on national media resulting in a short stint at Radio Botswana 2 (RB2) under the tutelage of radio veteran, One Rabantheng.
At 17 still, Molosi wrote and staged his first solo performance called Fragments (2002) directed by renowned Motswana director Gao Lemmenyane. Fragments is a meditation on children’s rights in Botswana. The show earned great critical acclaim and saw Molosi being invited to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children where he performed the show for world leaders such as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former South African President Nelson Mandela. Fragments was a crystallization of many of Molosi’s efforts to popularize children’s rights such as his poetry exhibition, Can I Live? (2002) which popularized the African Charter on the Rights of the Child. Upon his return to Botswana from the UN Summit, Molosi was awarded the Sir Seretse and Lady Ruth Khama Brilliant Spirit Award (2003) by His Excellency Lt. Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama in recognition of Molosi’s use of art altruistically for the service of the nation.
At 18, Molosi moved to live in the United States full time. While a high school senior at The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut Molosi starred in regional theatrical productions including You Can’t Take It With You and The Misanthrope. He also had several showcases of his poetry in Connecticut including a re-exhibition of Can I Live?. At Taft, Molosi was one of the two lead vocalists in the acappella group Eccedoce. A year later, Molosi enrolled at Williams College, America’s leading liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. There he completed two Bachelor’s Degrees, one in Theater and the other in Political Science. His thesis project was an exhibition of poetry called “EMBODIED” featuring the paintings of Jamaican painter Stefan Elrington and Nepalese painter Maya Lama.
In his four years at Williams, Molosi won several regional, national and international awards for his acting and writing abilities. He won the Best Actor at the Dialogue One Festival in Massachusetts for his portrayal of Sir Seretse Khama (2008); he won the Sanford Prize for Excellence in Theater (2009); he was nominated for the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship as a US national nominee (2009); he won the Lehman Scholar Award from Williams College for outstanding work in Political Theater; he won the Florence Chandler Fellowship which enabled him to conduct theater research around the world for 12 months. After Williams College, Molosi got his Graduate Diploma in Classical Acting from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) in England where he got to study under Academy-Award winner Janet Suzman. LAMDA’s alumni include David Oyelowo (The Butler), Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave) both of whom Molosi met and watched on stage while a student there.
Upon his return to New York’s off-Broadway scene in 2010, Molosi staged four solo shows that he penned. Blue, Black and White about the life of Seretse Khama earned him another Best Actor Award in 2011, Today It’s Me about the life of Uganda’s music superstar earned him the Robert Potter Playwriting Award in 2012, MOTSWANA: Africa, Dream Again earned him a publication deal by Indie Theater Now and Blue, Black and White 2 earned him the Dilling Yang Prize for Excellence in Playwriting.
In 2010 also, Molosi was one of the 200 young achievers invited by President Ma of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to commemorate Taiwan’s centenary celebrations. There, Molosi performed before world leaders including former South African President F.W. de Klerk.
Molosi has just completed a Master’s Degree in Theater and Performance Studies from the University of California (Santa Barbara). He has also just been honored as one of the 40 most influential people under 40 in Botswana in St. Louis 40 Under 40 List unveiled early 2014 following his run of Blue, Black and White in the country, which according to Peolwane magazine’s David Slater is the longest running one man show in the history of Botswana. He has also received similar honors from the National University of Taiwan and the Federation of European Carnival Cities.
As a playwright, his play Blue, Black and White is currently being performed by a company of Botswana performers in arts festivals in Botswana and Zimbabwe. Molosi is slated to reprise his role as Sir Seretse Khama off-Broadway in November 2014 where he will also be honored for his contributions to off-Broadway’s United Solo, the world’s largest solo theater festival.
So far in 2014 Molosi has dedicated most of his time to promoting GAMBIT: Newer African Writing, an anthology of African short stories in which Molosi’s Back To Love is published. The anthology was published by Mantle Books, a New York City publishing outlet. It earned praise for renowned African writers like Chika Unigwe and Helon Habila, both of whom Molosi holds in high regard.
Apart from acting and writing Molosi is a singer and songwriter and his next project which is at this point untitled will showcase his songwriting and singing abilities. He trained in classical singing at LAMDA. Molosi is privately a language historian and he speaks Setswana, Swahili, French and English fluently. He is conversational in Zulu and Ndebele, and understands Kalanga. During his stints in Tamilnadu India as a summer teacher of theater for children with disabilities, Molosi also picked up some Tamil and Hindi. Molosi is a public speaker and his last engagement as speaker was to deliver the keynote address at Bucknell University (Pennsylvania)’s Black History Month on the theme of Postcolonial African Performance as an Archive.
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