another gay star is born

By Musa Ngubane (BtM Reporter)

May 24, 2006: As far as acting and writing go many would think Nomonde Mbusi is still teething. But she has already featured in many stage plays at the Forum for the Empowerment of Women’s (FEW) productions, and being a lesbian never discouraged her for the roles she played so far.

Although Mbusi is adherent to religious movements, she has nifty skills, and in fact wears many hats like most of her counterparts making it big in the world of entertainment, that includes doing voice-overs for radio ads.

Commonly and largely known among lesbian communities as a great stage thespian, Mbusi – known as Steven Spielberg at FEW, is now playing Ziyanda, a priest’s wife in Tshatsha3 on the South African Broadcasting Corporation channel 1 (SABC1) and some scanty appearances in a popular South African soap opera, Generations.

“For me television is a step in the right direction, I am very happy with both roles” she said. However she maintained that theater is her passion, “I will always feed on applause and bowling after a great stage play”, she admitted.

Mbusi had always had passion for acting when she was a kid of four years, and she could mime most of the characters in a popular local situation comedy known as S’good S’nice in the 1980s.

Her creativity was honed at an early age. “I would even come up with traditional childhood games that I would play with my friends, and I remember there was a script that I wrote,” she asserts.

Though she was always not sure of what to become in the future, she ended up taking theatre studies at University of Natal, for which was always her passion.

After her studies, Mbusi wrote a famous musical play, Magic of Africa, based on a true story of two HIV positive stage actors who succesfully fought the stigma.

The details:
Tsha Tsha3 plays at 20:30 on Fridays, and Generations plays on Monday to Friday at 20:00; both on SABC1.