Born and raised in Bloemfontein, Temple Hauptfleisch attended Grey College (1950-1962), then spent a year as American Field Service exchange student in the USA (June 1963-July 1964). His tertiary studies include a BA in English and Latin at the University of the Orange Free State (1963-1966), an HED education diploma (UOFS, 1967), a BA Hons in English (UOFS, 1968), an M.A. in English Literature from the University of South Africa ( 1972) and a D.Litt. et Phil. (UNISA, 1978).
His academic career started as a teacher (1968-1971), followed by 15 years as researcher at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria, initially as a sociolinguist, specializing in language attitudes and language shift (1972-1977) and then as head of the National Documentation Centre for the Performing Arts, later named the Centre for South African Theatre Research (CESAT) from 1978 to 1987.
In 1988 he joined the Drama Department at the University of Stellenbosch as a researcher and senior lecturer (later professor), to lecture and write on diverse fields, including text analysis, playwriting, research methodology, theories of theatre and performance, and the sociology and history of theatre and performance in South Africa. He created the Centre for Theatre and Performance Studies (1994-2010), served as Chair of the Department (1995-2005) and was director of the H.B. Thom Theatre (1995-2003).
Besides the formal academic appointments outlined above, he has also been involved in a wide range of national and international initiatives over the years.
Co-founder (with Ian Steadman) and editor in chief of the South African Theatre Journal (SATJ) for its first 25 years (1987-2012), he was also a member of the editorial boards of the academic journals Critical Stages, African Performance Review and Shakespeare in Southern Africa, and two book series ( “Themes in Theatre – Collective Approaches to Theatre and Performance” by Rodopi Press and “Transnational Theatre Histories” by Palgrave Macmillan).
Organizational involvement has included being a founding member, and first secretary, of the South African Society for Drama and Youth Theatre (SAADYT), founder and first president of the South African Society for Theatre Research (SASTR), founding member and one time chair of the NRF rating panel for the Arts and a member of the National Arts Council’s panel for theatre and performance. International roles have included membership of the Modern Languages Association of America, the International Federation for Theatre Research (a member of the Executive Committee, 1999-2008), the International Association for Theatre Critics and the international advisory board of The Marvin Carlson Theatre Center at the Shanghai Theatre Academy (2016-). He is also a published playwright, and has been a theatre critic for various newspapers and a judge for the Dalro Awards, the Vita Awards and the Fleur du Cap Awards over the years.
Holding a B-rating as researcher since 2004, he has been the recipient of a Vita Award for Theatre Research (1989), the Stellenbosch University’s Rector’s Award for Outstanding Research (2000), the Kuns Onbeperk Award for services to the arts (2013) and honorary membership of the African Society for Theatre Research (2021).
After retirement in 2010, he has continued his research, largely focusing on the online Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT), a project that he founded in 2011 and currently continues to co-write and edit.

Besides a body of creative writing (that includes a few poems, a short story and 15 plays), 11 play-collections, mostly compiled and edited for schools, and a number of publications on various aspects of the sociology of language (including a 4 volume report on Language Loyalty in South Africa), Temple Hauptfleisch’s main output has been in the field of theatre and performance studies. Consisting of more than eighty academic works on the history of South African theatre, research methodology, the sociology of theatre and festival theory since 1978, the body of work includes numerous encyclopaedia entries on aspects of theatre and performance in the country for international publishers, and 8 book-length publications on the history and sociology of South African and international theatre. Since retirement in 2010, his main focus, and the core of his contribution, has been the extensive Wiki-based online, open access, archival/publication project entitled the Encyclopaedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT) First conceived in about 2000, but only set up formally in 2010 and opened it up to the public in 2011, with Hauptfleisch as the current project leader and chief editor, it has evolved into a long-term undertaking, currently standing at close on 30 000 entries. In the last few years he has also published an annotated academic text of the iconic play Woza Albert! (Methuen, 2018), an article on the playwright Pieter Fourie (for a collection edited by Fanie Olivier, Protea Boekhuis, 2019), a collection of articles on the playwright Reza de Wet (edited with Marisa Keuris, Protea Boekhuis, 2020), an article on the history of the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre (with Sheila Chisholm, Shakespeare in Southern Africa, 2022), a collection of articles on the playwright Bartho Smit (with Marisa Keuris, 2023) and an article on Wilma Stockenström for a collection edited by Ronel Foster (in press). For more comprehensive biographical and bibliographical information on Temple Hauptfleisch, see the entry in ESAT at www.https://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Temple_Hauptfleisch For further information on the Encyclopaedia for South African Theatre, Film, Media and Performance (ESAT) itself, see: www.http://esat.sun.ac.za/index.php/Main_Page