ATTENTION all UCT graduates who may have rejected the allure of lucrative offers to forge careers in exotic locations like Dubai and Japan to return to UCT and continue their studies. This is the story you gave been waiting to read.

UCT graduate, Quanita Adams had many similar propositions but says that continuing her studies was the best thing she has done for her flourishing career in theatre and TV.

Adams, who graduates this week with Honours in Drama, was based on the idyllic Mediterranean island of Majorca in 2001, where she sang and performed in a six-month production of a Motown tribute show.

“It was a cheesy experience; imagine the Love Boat but on land,” she says, squirming at the memories, “We covered tracks by Tina Turner, Diana Ross & the Supremes, Gloria Gaynor and a whole lot of cheesy Motown disco tracks.”

Her stint in Majorca, though financially lucrative, was emotionally unsatisfying. During her stay, she kept in touch with the Head of UCT's Drama Department who was pleading with Adams to return to UCT to complete her BA Arts degree.

“I thought about it and because I was not particularly happy, I thought sure, why not? But at the same time I was getting offers to go and sing in Dubai and Japan for obscene amounts of money.

“I turned them all down to come to UCT and I don't regret it because in the year that I have been here I have managed to do more with my life in my chosen direction, than I could have as a cheesy singer for British and American tourists,” she explains.

So far Adams' decision has worked in her favour. Besides being applauded for performances in For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf and the one-woman play, At Her Feet, Adams is about to appear on our TV screens on Vuyani Mzansi, which, in her words, “documents proud South Africans doing proudly South African things”.

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