John Kani’s celebrated acting career stretches five-plus decades, across multiple continents. Onstage, he gave Tony and Obie Award-winning performances in the plays “Sizwe Banzi Is Dead” and “The Island” — which he also co-wrote. His world tour of the latter included stops in Paris (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord), Stockholm (Stadsteatern), Montreal, and Washington, DC (Kennedy Center), and both shows recently enjoyed American and South African revivals. Kani also received an Olivier Award nomination for “My Children! My Africa!”

As a playwright, Kani’s art has also traveled the world. “Nothing But the Truth” — a play that is now studied in South African schools — won three Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards, an Excellence in International Theatre Award, five Naledi Theatre Awards and the Olive Schreiner Prize, with productions mounted at Grahamstown National Arts Festival, The Baxter Theatre Centre, The Market Theatre, The Sydney Opera House, Port Elizabeth Opera House, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (the play also toured New York and Australia). Meanwhile, Bogota Arts Festival selection “Missing” completed a tour of South Africa, with a UK leg forthcoming.

His directing resume includes numerous theater titles (“Goree;” “Blues Africa Café;” “Kagoos;” “The Meeting,” at The Market Theatre; “The Bacchae;” “Friday’s Bread on Monday,” “Sellout,” “The Last Bus,” and “The Cure,” at The Serpent Players). In 2008, he made his film directorial debut with an adaptation of his play “Nothing But the Truth.” The feature claimed the Silver Etalon de Yennega at the Ouagadougou Panafrican Film and Television Festival.

Television and film credits include: Wallander and Inkaba (which he also created), The Wild Geese, The Grass Is Singing, Marigolds in August, Victims of Apartheid, An African Dream, Option, A Dry White Season, Sarafina, Saturday Night at the Palace (Taormina International Film Festival’s Golden Mask), Kini and Adams, Ghost and the Darkness, The Tichborne Claimant, The Final Solution, The White Lion, The End Game, The Suit, Coriolanus,  How to Steal Two Million, Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther, Murder Mystery, and Disney’s 2019 remake of The Lion King (voicing Rafiki).

Countless awards and honors have been bestowed on Kani throughout his extraordinary career, among them honorary doctorates from the University of Durban Westville, Rhodes University, The University of Cape Town, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University; the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation Award; and the Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for lifetime achievement. In 2005, he received the Order of Ikamanga from the President of the Republic of South Africa, recognizing his contribution in the struggle for the liberation of his country through his work in the arts.