When Neil Coppen won the 2011 Standard Bank Young Artist Award he shared a heart-warming anecdote from his childhood in which he tells of a wooden puppet theatre his father built for him when he was eight years old. Using it to tell stories for pocket money at children's birthday parties became a stepping stone to a career that has made him one of South Africa's most celebrated young playwrights.

Coppen's strength lies in his remarkable talent for telling stories through the voices of characters whose lives are richly textured by the personal and the political. He never lowers the tone to become didactic. He never raises it so high it becomes a sermon. He never makes it so unreal that it becomes unbelievable.

It is probably for this reason that Tin Bucket Drum (2005) and Tree Boy (2010), earned him the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award and led to his commissioned work, Abnormal Loads (2011). At the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, Tin Bucket Drum and Tree Boy played alongside at least 300 other productions and it would have been easy for the work of a new, young playwright to get lost in a vast programme where popular and established names pull the crowds. However, thanks to Coppen's early experience as a storyteller and his ability to weave together elements of magic realism, shadow puppetry, Afro-Kabuki and live percussion, Tin Bucket Drum rose to the surface and stood out as one of the gems of the Fringe.

Since then Tin Bucket Drum has earned standing ovations and critical reviews from Grahamstown to Cape Town and New York. At the 2007 Musho Festival in KwaZulu- Natal the play won the Audience Vote Award. At the 2010 National Arts Festival it was honoured with the Standard Bank Fringe Ovation Award. When it opened in New York it received glowing reviews, proving that Coppen's work resonates both with audiences and with critics beyond geographical and cultural boundaries.