It is impossible to list or to quantify Temple Hauptfleisch’s immense contribution, his love and knowledge of South African theatre.

Academically, he is impressively accomplished. At school he was selected to be an American Field Service student. From UOFS he obtained a BA in English and Latin, followed by a BA Hons in English. At university his interest in theatre (first initiated at home) was stimulated by his lecturers. This drove him to obtain an M.A. in English from UNISA with his thesis Greek Dramatic Conventions in Modern Drama and then finally receiving a D.Litt. et Phil. in 1978 with the title The Play as Communication: A Study of the Language of Drama.

His involvement in South African theatre from that date has been extraordinarily laudable: As an academic, researcher and commentator, he has delivered papers and lectured across the world, he has sat on innumerable boards, initiated theatre research, written his own plays and compiled anthologies as well as writing and publishing more than eighty works on the history of South African theatre.

In 2010, when he retired from Stellenbosch University as Emeritus Professor, he turned his passion into a hobby devoting his time to establishing ESAT – an online research reference, a comprehensive Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance. A work of inestimable value. A record of the vast panoply of South Africa’s cultures. A work which, despite over 3000 entries, he says, on reflection: Is only the start. There is so much more.