OUR DIRECTORS

Sammy Mwangi, Director - Team Leading

Sammy Mwangi, the Team Leader, and arguably the ‘chief honcho’, brings with him an asset oriented direction for the group. He is a graduate of the defunct, prestigious Nairobi Theatre Academy. Here he got honed up with the necessary art and craft of the performing arts trade-such that he could be anything in the great but young Kenyan theatrical industry. He passed through the Pumwani Secondary and the Kenya Polytechnic University, where he acquired the basics of the graphics design. As if being an excellent orator is not enough, Sammy is also very fluent with the French language in both written and spoken versions! , this led him briefly, to become a tour guide, and tour the country’s tourist hotspots in the process. He abandoned the idea and took French to the next level, which was to take part in performances inspired by or in the French lingo. He grew his theatrical passion out of the French context and began conventional play acting before embarking on, and being among the only few thespians in Kenya to have acquired formal training in the trade of theatre at the defunct Nairobi Theater Academy, under the tutelage of the best brains and personalities fluent with theater in Kenya at that time, including the late James Falkland, Annabelle Maule, John Sibi-Okumu, Tirus Gathwe, etc. His exposures took him to Phoenix Players where he took part in several productions. As well as Kenya National Theatre, French Cultural Centre, National Museums of Kenya amongst other auditoriums. His big break came about when he became the artistic director of Falaki Arts Ensemble, the predecessor of Heartstrings Ensemble, where he also held the same position, under the directorship of the late Erastus Owuor. Upon the unfortunate demise of Erastus Owuor in 2000, Sammy took over ably the mantle of being the team leader of the troupe. First it was a challenge, and then it eventually became easy given the fact that he had with him vast exposure and experiences as a thespian before then, and to him mountains are moved by willpower, which he has in plenty!.
 He also had a short stint at the University of Maryland, in the USA, and has gathered a lot of theatrical exposure as well as experience in various forays including the Cameroun, Poland, Tanzania and the USA.
He is married with one daughter. And he doubles up as an Arts Manager at the International School of Kenya.

Victor Ber, Director - Operations

Victor Ber is a hands-on fellow and a graduate of Textiles Design, Graphics Design and theatre at the prestigious Buru Buru Institute of Fine Arts, (BIFA), which explains his bias for the arts; graphics and theater in specific. His par excellence skills have earned him a big name in the Kenyan theatre industry where he had consistently earned the best actor awards of the now defunct and prestigious Mbalamwezi Theater Awards. This Parklands Boys alumni marriage with the performing arts began accidentally in the 1993, when he joined Waudo for the acting calling from George ‘Tyson’ Otieno at the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC), Jerusalem, under the auspices of the Pambazuko Players based there, for set books for schoolchildren and a couple of Swahili plays, before making the big break and appearing at the Kenya National Theatre Auditorium courtesy of the late Erastus Owuor, among other directors. His greatest fear of ever directing a play on his own was overcome when he first ventured into the act-he has never looked back. To his credit now, he is arguably the most renowned theatre director in Kenya, that, apart from directing plays at Heartstrings, he is also involved with numerous other directing programmes including set books, church plays colleges and university, and community projects. An achiever in his own right, he is amongst the founder members of the troupe Heartstrings Kenya, then Heartstrings Ensemble.
He is very single and doubles up a creative machine for the successful TV show- Churchill live.

Ken Waudo, Director - Developments

Ken Waudo is a pragmatic visionary who sometimes cut out as a corporate more than a thespian. He is in charge of various groups’ components including marketing, publicity, production management and coordination, human resources outreaching activities, Public Relations and the general management activities as deputized by the team leader. He is a graduate of Uganda Pentecostal University where he undertook the course leading to postgraduate certificate in administrative law, as well as the undergraduate degree in the Social Sciences. He has also undertaken instructions partly at the BIFA, where he could not finish the Graphics Design course, and also he is a trained marketer as he acquired his skills from the outstanding Kenya Institute of Management. This Nile Road alumni also got into theater through the invitation of one George ‘Tyson’ Otieno, where he tagged along his childhood friend Victor ‘Berry’, and together they rode on the levels of acting from the humblest origins of Pambazuko players, KELC Jerusalem, through to the National Theatre, before ‘disappearing’ from the scene, to go and try out modeling Mombasa, and consequently rejoining the Falaki Arts Ensemble, till to the level of founding the Heartstrings Ensemble, a predecessor to Heartstrings Kenya. He also participated in the Malibu Star Search Series at Carnivore with the winning group, ‘Fanya & Family, which eventually saw the ‘birth’ of the Redkyulas trio, who were also part of this winning troupe of the Malibu Star Search Series. Mr. Waudo has directed numerous plays with Heartstrings and other troupes and has also travelled theatrically to Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo, Usangi and Dondo, all in Tanzania, at the Kampala National Theatre in Uganda, at the Alliance Française De Kigali in Rwanda, in the Virunga Cultural Sites in Congo, and with the Engabu Za Tooro Troupe in Fort Portal, as guest theatrical director during the King Oyo Of Tooro Kingdom’s anniversary celebrations, as well as practically every performing space in Kenya.
He also has served in committees including Institute of Performing Arts Ltd (IPAL), the executive committee, on the establishment of International Theatre Institute - Kenya Chapter. Kenya Association of Theatres Artists (KATA), Arya Girls Prize giving days, Harvest of plays organizing committee, Nairobi Theatre Extravaganza organizing committee 2002, 2001, 2000, Mbalamwezi Theatre Awards. Currently he is an executive member of Kenya Actors Guild since November 2008-present

He is married with one daughter, in his spare time he plays rugby and does research. He is also an active Rotarian as a member of the Rotaract Club of Westlands.

Dan Ndambuki, Director - Executive Producing

Dan Ndambuki is the witty, humorous and canny Director of the group and being a late entrant into the group he has managed to pump the necessary ‘new’ and vital energies that the group required to scale even greater heights, as we face the inevitable future.
After scaling rural landscape of Eastern Kenya, Machakos to be precise, whilst undergoing schooling, he landed in Nairobi in search of ‘luck’. His ‘luck’ was not easy to come by, he fell into the casual labor machinery of the city’s industrial area. This endeared him to be even more determined and adventurous, while polishing him with skills honing and endurance, that later become useful for his career.

His humble beginnings and first venture to theatre, was when he ‘accidentally’ went to auditions at the Kenya National Theatre. Upon spending a whole day outside the auditioning venue waiting for whomever he had escorted, in the evening, the rain-drenched Ndambuki ventured into the hall to ‘just try his luck’, and the producer George ‘Tyson’ Otieno saw him and smelt talent. He doesn’t know what impressed him into giving him a slot in the play straight away. Theatre eventually, paved the way to radio, first with KBC radio where he made his name as a sports presenter, and then a stint at Citizen Radio, finally he settled at Radio Africa Group, where he continues to star as a co-presenter in a popular radio breakfast show.

His debut on TV began with a show with comedy group Public Noise Makers in NTV’s (then Nation TV), the programme was Intrukallas. During this Intrukallas days, thespian and humorist ‘Whispers’ Wahome Mutahi evolved his character to that of a proud academic —the extravagantly-named Prof Churchill Abednego Dionysus Heroditus Mac Ojwang. ‘Churchill’ then joined the Redkyulas group’s comedy show the Red Korna, and the proud professor persona was working. The first show was an instant hit, and he never changed the character. When the Redkyulas trio of Nyambane, KJ and Tony toured the US in 2006, he accompanied them as a guest artist. “It was then that I realized my full potential… people suggested that I do my own TV show.” That show would be Churchill Live, which, again, didn’t come easy. It started when he linked up with Bob Nyanja (his partner in Churchill Live). “Bob asked me what we could do together and the idea of the show was born.” Eventually, NTV bought the dream.

While all this occurred in his life, he never let eyes off his first love which mothered all this successes, theatre. Heartstrings ‘discovered’ his innate talent in their comedies, of the conventional nature. Here he redeveloped, added, honed and supplemented his stand-up comedy talents.

He is the latest of the Heartstrings Directors, having become one in 2005. He has a son Gideon, whom he cherishes so much. He also appears in the TV show- Churchill live as Churchill himself, he is also radio presenter.