THEATRE PRODUCERS

See Also: THEATRE COMPANIES; THEATRE RELATED

Thelma Holt

Sweetpea Slight's book Get Me The Urgent Biscuits: An Assistant's Adventures In Theatreland (2017) is an account of the two decades she spent working as an assistant to Holt.

Location: No l Coward Theatre, 85 St Martin's Lane, WC2N 4AU (red, brown)

Website: www.thelmaholt.co.uk

Bill Kenwright

In 2014 Bill Kenwright (d.2023) held the rights to all of Christie's plays bar The Mousetrap.

Location: B.K.L. House, 1 Venice Walk, W2 1RR

Website: www.kenwright.com

Littlestar Services

Judy Craymer studied stage management at the Guildhall School Music & Drama. Her early jobs included working at The Old Vic and with Cameron Mackintosh on Cats. Ahe went on to work on Chess, a musical that had been created by Tim Rice and the Abba musicians Benny Andersson and Bj rn Ulvaeus. Subsequently, with Rice's encouragement, she approached the two Swedes with the idea for using Abba's back catalogue to create a juke box musical. Craymer and the pair set up Littlestar Services to develop the show. The process took a decade. Mamma Mia! opened in 1999.

Location: 32-33 St James's Place, SW1A 1NR

Website: https://www.littlestarservices.com

Cameron Mackintosh

As an eight-year-old, Cameron Mackintosh was taken to see the musical Salad Days. As a teenager he became a stagehand at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. In 1981 he had his big break when he produced Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.

Location: 1 Bedford Square, WC1B 3RB (red, blue)

Website: www.cameronmackintosh.com

H.M. Tennent

The theatrical agents Binkie Beaumont and Harry Tennent came to know one another while they were both working for the production-managers Howard & Wyndham. In 1936 the pair broke away and set up their own agency H.M. Tennent Limited. The Firm , as it became known, was based at The Globe Theatre. The reclusive Mr Tennent died in 1941. From the 1940s through to the 1960s The Firm dominated British commercial theatre. H.M. Tennent did not exert its influence through contracts. Rather, its positive influence was expressed through the very considerable charm of Mr Beaumont and its negative one through its refusal to have anything to do with anyone who ran afoul of him.

Binkie disliked publicity. He believed his sway was the greater for being exercised discretely. He regarded money that was spent on advertising a hit as being wasted and money that was spent on publicising a failure as being counterproductive to its subsequent sweeping under the carpet. Beaumont s influence began to wane in the 1950s, however, he remained by far the most influential figure in British commercial theatre right up until the time of his death in 1973.

Location: The Gielgud Theatre, 33 Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 6AR. In 1995 The Globe Theatre's name was changed to honour the actor Sir John Gielgud, who had appeared in numerous H.M. Tennent productions. (red, yellow)

Michael White

Michael White (1936-2016) was a Glaswegian Jew whose parents owned a glove making business. He was schooled in Switzerland and studied at the Sorbonne. In 1956 he started working for the theatre producer Sir Peter Daubeny. This led him to have dealings with both the Berliner Ensemble and the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1960 he helped bring both Merce Cunningham and John Cage to London. This helped to create an audience for modern dance in the city. The following year White went solo. His shows ranged from the avante-garde to the experimental. He sought to avoid self-regarding solemnity of much of theatrical world.

White's first successful show was Oh! Calcutta! The title was a play on Oh, quel cul t as; White was fluent in French. The show was created by Ken Tynan and included contributions from Samuel Beckett and John Lennon. It had over 3900 performances in London and even more during its New York run. Housewife Superstar (1970), which starred Barry Humphries as Edna Everage was one of White's first West End hits.

White's regular investors included the movie director Michael Winner. Upon one occasion the latter asked the former why he should put money into a particular show. Because you simply have to he was told.

White produced The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1973). On the first night there were 63 people in the audience. It was White's decision to transfer the show to the Chelsea Classic, a disused cinema on The King's Road. It ran there for six years and then transferred to The Comedy Theatre in the West End. While chemically refreshed White had sold his rights in the show.

In 1973 Robert Fox became White s assistant. They developed a productive relationship with Joe Papp's New York-based Public Theater Company.

White enjoyed a party. Following the first night of A Chorus Line he invited the whole audience to attend. The occasion was reputed to have cost 100,000.

In his sixties White developed a taste for drum n bass. He took to frequenting the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

In 2005 White both went bankrupt and had a heart attack. However, he resumed his career.

The actress Greta Scacchi described White as the most famous person you ve never heard of.

Over the course of his career White produced 101 shows and 27 movies. The latter included Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Location: 13 Duke Street St James s, SW1Y 6DB (purple, blue)

David Backhouse 2024