Rooftop Promotions and Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) are on a collision course over Theatre in the Park (TIP) venue in the Harare Gardens.
Report by Tinashe Sibanda
The gazebo that has been used by Rooftop Promotions for its plays over the past 17 years belongs to ZIBF and the two parties are haggling over new lease conditions.
Rooftop Promotions alleges that a new ZIBF board, led by veteran author Musayemura Zimunya, intended to elbow out TIP through stringent contractual amendments.
Rooftop Promotions publicist Lesley Moyo said the traditional one-year renewable contract was cut to six months in July this year “without any explanations”.
He said ZIBF had increased the maintenance fees, including a clause where they will review the fee quarterly. The theatre company refused to sign the new contract.
“We have refused to sign the contract as we feel that there are certain clauses we are not in agreement with and, for starters we want them to revert to the previous one-year lease agreement as it helps us in terms of planning,” said Moyo.
“We run a year-long theatre calendar and, therefore, we would want to plan ahead with the assurance that we will still have access to the venue at least for a full year.”
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Moyo said their play was recently chucked out of the venue to pave way for another theatre event, and this jeopardised their programme. He said, because of such
a move, they felt that the Zimunya-led board was breeding mistrust and tension within the theatre industry. However, Zimunya said Rooftop Promotions was misinforming its clients over the issue. “Rooftop have not told the same public, from whom they seek to milk sympathy and invite contributions to settle their contractual obligations, that our memorandum of agreement normally runs from March to February of each year,” said Zimunya. “They failed to seek to renew the agreement at its expiry in February even though they continued to occupy and use ZIBF premises and only came to the negotiating table in July.” He said they had been dealing with Rooftop Promotions as their client and as a fellow arts and cultural organization until the beginning of 2012, when Rooftop failed to remit their fees on schedule and did not seek to renew their contract until asked. “In spite of differences arising from the conditions of the new contract, those differences were not fatal and did not diminish our estimation of the operations of Rooftop.” He said the reviewed and renewed contract was prepared following protracted negotiations with Daves Guzha, representing Rooftop Promotions. “Subsequently, an agreement was drafted which took into account the agreed points and presented to Guzha for signing and unfortunately to-date, he has not signed. “They have moved back in (the venue) without even the respectful decency to explain their recent actions.”
