Angelique Rockas

Rockas was born and raised in Boksburg, South Africa, to Greek parents who had emigrated from Greece with hopes of finding a better life. She had three siblings, followed Greek Orthodox Christian traditions, and was taught to honour her Greek cultural heritage. She received her early education at St Dominic's Catholic School for Girls, Boksburg, and later earned a bachelor's degree in English literature with a major in philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. After earning a further honours Degree in English literature, Rockas went on to complete an acting course at the Drama School of the University of Cape Town under the direction of Robert Mohr.

A young activist, Rockas appeared on the June 1970 front page of the Star with a group of debutantes raising funds for SAHETI School, a Greek school located in Germiston, South Africa. She also participated in a 25 March Greek War of Independence Poetry Celebration with George Bizos. Bizos nicknamed her "l'enfant terrible" for her resistance to the status quo, and became her role model leading up to her founding of the Internationalist Theatre.

Her activities as an anti-apartheid and feminist activist in “the then underdeveloped and extremely conservative” South Africa eventually motivated her move to the UK. While residing in North London, she worked for Theatro Technis, a Greek Cypriot theatre company that focused on sociopolitical issues affecting Greek Cypriots, and also helped to promote Greek tragedies and comedies to London audiences.

In London, Rockas began acting under the direction of George Eugeniou at Theatro Technis where she participated in Greek classical productions.

Rockas also played Io in a production of Prometheus Bound. She also performed under the name of Angeliki in dual language productions (Greek/English) based on improvisations about issues that touched the Greek Cypriot community, and the tragedy of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Attilas '74. The plays included Dowry with Two White Doves, Afrodite Unbound, A Revolutionary Nicknamed Roosevelt, "Oh Democracy!",Ethnikos Aravonas.

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In 1982, she made her mark on the London stage playing the lead role in Medea by Euripides as a barefooted refugee, directed by George Eugeniou at Theatro Technis. with The Times critic Ned Chaillet drawing attention "to the wrath of Medea spurned erupting in the dangerous passions of Angelique Rockas".

Rockas performed Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Tramshed Woolwich.

She appeared in The F and H Play playing the Nurse at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh.

Rockas performed in several productions presented by Internationalist Theatre in London from 1981 to 1985:

Carmen in The Balcony,

Yvette in Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children,

Tatiana in Gorky's Enemies,

Concentration camp victim Emma in the Argentinian anti-junta political drama The Camp by Griselda Gambaro in 1981. Spare Rib's Jenny Vaughan noted "Angelique Rockas`s Emma is electric...."

Miriam in the London premiere of Tennessee Williams's In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel at the New End Theatre,

the titular role in Strindberg's Miss Julie in 1984. Rockas challenged casting cliches when as a "short, Latin-looking actress" she was cast as the aristocratic character.

Rockas is an Orthodox Christian, and creates fabric art works some of which are at the Benaki Museum in Athens.