Buhle ngaba
…is a multi-award-winning South African actor, writer and researcher.
Buhle Ngaba is a multi-award-winning actor, writer and researcher. Her research and performance interests include developing new thought processes around the role of storytelling in unearthing and amplifying African women’s voices from the archive; to inspire new narratives and push the boundaries of performance. In 2025 she was awarded Best Actress at the 2025 Stellenbosch Toyota Woordfees for her performance in Nadia Davids’ Bridling. She has most recently been nominated for another Best Actress award at the 2026 Kyknet Fiestas. She studied Acting and Contemporary Performance at Rhodes University before joining the acclaimed theatre company Ubom! Eastern Cape Drama Company. Thereafter she starred in the world premiere of John Kanis’ Missing and toured internationally with the production, earning Best Supporting Actress nominations at the Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards and Naledi Theatre Awards.
In 2016 Buhle founded Maru Factory, a production company dedicated to creating and producing independent theatre and artistic work. She has been awarded the prestigious Brett Goldin Bursary, a residency at the Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford) where she deepened her understanding of Shakespearean performance. It was during this time that she wrote her debut play, Swan Song, which went on to win two Kanna Theatre Awards, including Best Upcoming Artist. The production received widespread praise from critics and sold-out seasons in 2022 at Wiener Festwochen (Vienna) and Basel Theatre Festival (Switzerland). Ngaba was named as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2016 and voted number 1 by the public in the Superbalist Top 100 Entrepreneur List – a definitive list of young creatives redefining the future of creative culture, entrepreneurship and style in SA. In the same year, Buhle was awarded with a Gauteng Youth Premiers award of excellence.
In 2018, Ngaba was nominated for a Fleur du Cap Theatre Award for Best Leading Actress for her performance in What Remains, written by Nadia Davids and directed by Jay Pather. Most recently, she appeared in an adaptation of Davids’ Caine Prize-winning short story Bridling, which premiered to critical acclaim at the 2025 National Arts Festival.
Ngaba has developed Shakespeare Grounded ; a radical workshop program and approach to accessing Shakespeare’s stories and their accessibility in South African institutions (University of Cape Town, AFDA). As a published author (The Girl Without A Sound), Buhle seeks to promote diversity in children’s literature and to develop the legacy of storytelling amongst the youth. In 2022, she was an art fellow at CHR (the Centre for Humanities Research, UWC), where she wrote the puppetry theatre production on the life and times of Charlotte Maxeke. In 2023, she completed a digital curatorial fellowship culminating in the Triggers from the Future; 76’ – Present exhibition in collaboration with the UWC Robben Island Mayibuye Archives.
Buhle was awarded the 2024 Market Theatre Barney Simon Residency, where she developed her latest production, BLING! . The production follows the largest diamond in the world (the Cullinan diamond) finding her way back home to South Africa whilst navigating her role in global history from the turn of the 19th century to present. The show premiered to sold-out performances and critical acclaim at the 2024 Wiener Festwochen and toured to Amsterdam Afrovibes Festival in October 2025. The production will be returning home to South Africa in 2026.