BLACR
THERTRE
comerpondi
4o2
Coresopenboue re: Cnristoghe
Key warls:
Play; Cluridtople; Correspoudance


Lucy Kroll Agency
CABLE ADDRESS:
390 WEST END AVENUE
LUCYKROLL NEW YORK
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10024
TELEPHONE: TRAFALGAR 7-0627
TRAFALGAR 7-0556-7
Mr. Maurice Rowdon
5 Tamworth Street
London SW 6, England
Re: CHRISTOPHE - James Earl Jones
Dear Mr. Rowdon:
By way of introduction, I represent James Earl Jones. Your script
was given to Mr. Jones when he was doing PAUL ROBESON in London in
August of 1978. We are very interested in it, and would have contacted
you sooner but have had difficulty finding your address. Could we take
an option on the play? Are the rights free? Has it ever been done or
published? Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Also, if you have
extra copies of the script, could you send a few?
We look forward eagerly to hearing from you.
Best regardsA
LK/cm
Lucy 1 oll'
CC: James Earl Jones


2139 DERSY
BERKELEY CA
Dear Tony,
Hhiik
CHRISTO PHE C
HoT
h 7
P - 99-sealr ut cu Showiup
vir te Jalue
Eskimo TRANCE
han had
Bnlam
hib
CH HRISTO JHE
pokudtins
BLACK BOBIN
tke
ie mau
ESKIMO
cleau.
- I umld
euk
cet the peatical
ack how,
smld
BABIN.
BLACK
'oe sact
lave
plays
also
Shice
ld perhet


uake G
uteval eveninp.
On tie best hon
aut


c/o Nilsson
2139 Derby
Berkeley
Dear Tony,
I thought I'd better add a mini resume to
those scripts of mine. I've had four or five
productions hitherto, in Britain and Germany.
My two London productions were at the Mercury
and the Arts theatres. My MAHLER was (unwillingly)
the basis of Ken Russell's film of that name.
1978. I was director of English-speaking productions
at the Studio theatre in Munich. 1976/8 I was
director at Britain's only Black ensemble The Dark
and Light Theatre in London. It was there that
I developed an interest in Black themes. I wrote
CHRISTOPHE which as I think I told you James Earl
Jones took an option on. ">
I've published twelvé or thirteen books--
novels, biography, travel, history ànd the latest
on animal intelligence (ELKE AND BELAM, Putnams).
I use my research extensively in my plays, and
the one-man show BLACK BOBIN which you have is
based on my book THE SPANISH TERROR (St Martin's
Press).
With all good wishes from
Maurice Rowdon


Memorandum on Play Publishing.
The idea would be to approach the theatres with
the idea of taking off their shoulders a load they
cannot afford and cannot cope with---the avalanches
of manuscripts which pour in each week and have to be
sent back, with the worthwhile material often lost
among them, for lack of readers or literary managers,
or the failure of either to influence the production
side.
The interest of theatre people quickens when I
mention the possibility of starting the German system
here, whereby theatres receive small mimiographed
play copies from the publishing house, a hand-full
each week, or perhaps only one a month, chosen by the
publishing house with their special requirements and
commitments in mind. Some theatres might agree to
having all their scripts diverted to the publishing
house, leaving to the publishing house the sole dis-
cretion in the choice of new plays. It would save
them a great deal of time, worry and the kind of re-
sentment that rejecting hundreds of scripts a year
necessarily entails. Most of the subsidised theatres
would want to control scripts themselves, but they
could still save themselves the labour and expense of
script reading and script sorting by creating a close
relationship between themselves and the publishing
house. One would hope that eventually even if a
theatre did take a script on its own initiative, it
would natural to then find a publisher for it, as in
Germany.
The theatres would, as in Germany, rent the play
from the publishing house, on a percentage system.
The percentage system in Germany is very complicated,
and woulld take some learning. The struggling, sub-
sidised theatres could be safeguarded by special
clauses, giving them a lick off the West End and film
rights. The Mermaid theatre put on Hadrian V1l at
great risk, with less than two hundred pounds in ad-
vanced bookings, compared with a usual thousand, and
in spite of the fact that they had rejected the original
script seven years before, and that it had been a flop
in its previous production in Birmingham, and that the
Mermaid production was precisely the same as the Birming-
ham one. Some of the reviewers who had panned it in
the north priased it in London.
But the Mermaid is
receiving from the film, West End and Broadway rights
just eight pounds a week, because those rights are in
thehands of a West End impresario who put up some of
the production money. Under the play publishing scheme
all these rights would be in the hands of the publisher,
and theatres might warm to this idea if they got spec-
ially advantageous results from a West End transfer.
Naturally you could not have precisely the same system
as in Germany because the theatre there is mostly
subsidised and mostly provincialm and the West End or


Broadway situation. But the Berlin theatres do go in
for long runs, and there are special renting arrangements
for them. And here in England something like the German
situation will eventually arise, with the increase of Arts
centres and subsidised provincial theatres operating on
a repertory basis.
But impresarios also might be intersted in availing
themselves of the play publisher's service, ahd be prepar-
ed to siphen off their weekly scripts (which are a buaden
and a bore to them all except Bill Freedman) to the pub-
lishing house, so that the publisher can sift out the
particular moneymaker he is after.
The thing to do would be to canvas the feelings of
various theatres, beginning with an agreemtn with a few,
and gradually extending the influence.
The advantage for the publisher is that he keeps an
author as a total property, not simply for his book work.
He can lay an immediate hand on his fink film and play
rights, and function really as the author's agent. Play
agents are in my experience virtually disregarded in the
theatre anyway. The impresarios are interested in ready
package dèals, on the basis of a try-out, and an agent
with a script in his hand is really useless.
And as for
the repertory or subsidised theatres, they tend to pay
the agents even less attention than the authors. Now
the acceptance of a play by a play publisher will mean
that the first negotiating stage will have been passed.
The publisher's having advanced the aubhor say a hundred
or two hundred pounds will be a proof of his confidence
in the script and a recommendation to thea theatres which
no agent's persuasions can carry. But still the agent
will not be starved out: he would simply represent his
author with the publishaing house, as in the case of
books. There are both play agents and play publishers
in Germany, after all. The agents contact both theatres
and publishers: if they get an acceptance from a theatre
their next step is to take the script to a play publisher,
whose man is already deep in deals for which the author's
agent has no time or equipment. Knowing that a theatre
is already interested, the play publisher knows that at
his least his initialtexpenses are probably covered.
'Publication' here means paper-cpvered hand-size
mimiographed copies on poor paper, produced at a minimal
cost. Therefore the main outlay involved is' in the
advance to the author, and the posting of copies to the
various theatres, and the travel and entertainment expenses
of the head of department who hawks the plays and persuades.
His travels would soon extend to New York and the Continent.
Eventually the commercial-theatre department and the
repertory-theatre department coulld be separate though
overlapping often on rights. The readers would decide
which department should deal with which script.
As a literary manager said to me desparately the
other day, 'You see, we can't stop people sending in
scripts. And we can't afford" to pay a staff to look
after them!'
Under play publishing it would become quite usual
for a handfull of theatres up and down the country to
take a script for production, so that there would be a
simultaneous premiere extending to a number of towns.


At present, the whole situation of script-
submission in this country is in chaos. It is
well nigh impossible for a serious writer to get
attention for his scripts, 'because - ---this was
Bernard Miles's wife-- -'every actor thinks he can
write a play'. More and more productions are
coming from inside companies, and naturally---with-
out theimaginative force of real writers any more-
the audiences are dwindling awayo There is a great
chance for a publisher to do a lot of sorting out.
I feel sure he could get the Arts Council behind
him, even to the point of money help in the first stages.
After all, they more than anybody else created the
mess. They made the mistake of subsidising writers
directly. Years ago when their scheme started I
wrote Goodman that this would create vast piles of
scripts and no theatres to put them on in. This is
exactly what happened. Now (incidentally just when
I asked them for a direct subsidy) they have had to
withdraw the scheme: it apparently didn't occur to
them that you have to keep the theatres on their feet,
and if necessary plant a man to see that new plays are
put on, before. you finance writers to make plays.
The result of thei mistake has been the creation of
little enclaves where the director (who has. no time to
read) is the dictator. A friendof mine gets ten
thousand a year from the Arts council for following
his own personal whims purely and entirely. I've written
a separate thing go the Arts council on this and will
send you a copy another time.
The point about a publisher is that he is equipped
to returning hundreds of scriptss Rejecting is second
nature to him, and since he is maligned anyway, the
resentment of hundreds of actors who think they can write
plays would wipe off easily. A publishing housé would
re-establish the play. as the product of a writer.
There would have to be some working-out of the
author's relationship to the publishing, depending on
whether he had an agent or not. If the publishing
house acted as his sole agent it would take ten percent
of his box office, beside its other renting fees.
The aubhor's agent would be taking ten percent of
your advance to the author, and ten percent of the sub-
sequent author's earnings. In placing the play with an
impreario, or a theatre, or theatres, you would not be
treading on his toes but extending his income. o
The
agents would even begin to send you material, in the same
way that he now sends it to the theatre managements.
Of course you would have the added incentive that
the dramatic and film rights would give you oppertunities
to promote an author in an all-round way: You would
hope in the end to be able to promise a 'Constable play-
wright' at least one definite production.
I think the x*pE steps in laying the basis for
a play-publishing department would be 1) studying the
German system in detail 2) talking to the Arts council
and 3) talking to the theatres. The Arts council is
penetrating x5 West End production more and more, at
leats accord ng to themselves.


Postscript.
At present the theatre is in need of liaison
people who produce package deals (the director, the
actor, the money and the play) without being West End
impresarios interested in just one play at a time.
The point about the theatre now is that people do not
get together. The director is far from the writer, and
the impresario is unheard and unseen until an obvious
provincial hit or a ready package deal comes up over
the horizon. The play-publisher would be something
of an author's agent, but his actually controlling his
scripts (not simply taking ten percent of the author's
box office) would give him much more of a hold on the
theatres than any agent would have. In Germany for
instance a play-publisher soon after the last war forced
the TV companies to raise their playwright fee to the
American levell because hé controlled the German lan-
guage rights of everyone from Arthur Miller to John
Osborne. The TV companies would have had to cut out
nearly every play of importance from the Anglo-Saxon
world. No author's agent sould have achieved this;
nor could a theatre manager;; nor could an impresario,
however big.


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Dear Mr Andrews,
I am now in the middle of the play which the
literary manager of the Mermaid asked me. to write and Sa
whichI asked you to commission, and Which quite rightly
you wouldn't C ommission without" a definite guarantee of
production from thes theatregl of course you dan't want
to finance ever bigger piles of new playscritps, unper-
formed and mostly unread, as you have been doing for quite
five years. Which seems to show---as I wers-eldimieg *
Car Of
when this absurd Author'sd Grants idea started---that ther
problem
ispiththe managements/and the producers, and not
9 thel authors, whom only wild horses would drag from the
writing of scripts.
will
Isn't it time that the Arts Council left its caref-
fully neurtal terroitory, where it can only get neutral
reults, and aentered the theatre-boldyly as what in fact
it is, producer/imprearig? The Arts Council has by now, /
(I imagine, anyway) a tremémndous amount of knowledge up
lics) im its sleeve, and knows which writers would get on well
Onid
with which producers, and what kind of theatre both-belong- odberiltr
qun
tonhm-Isn't it time that the Arts Council became a pertio-
ipating- body, -es a theatrical producer, much-as the BBCiS
a producer of TV programmes'wsthout-1esing its statusas
A public corporation? It Would mean perhaps renting
divel
Atheatrosz even West End theatres.A It might hgean buying ghalsz, i
them
It would. mean a staff on "establishment' posts,
in charge of the programming, the allotting pf plays or
playwrights to certain theatres, and above the all the
creation of producer-managers/on whom the whole future
of our thea tre depends, and Indeed-or-wh-mem/all theatre
everywhere has always depended. - Theseheme Would-eembine
Jurv un lte several possivbilitios, preeisely as the-BBC does, with
I scl 1 boo tts producers and directors on permanent employment, its 77
kate
Bochor outside writers and outside directors on pontract, its
renting, of S tudios) and buyjag gf s tudios, 148'BBC Enter-
1rises 'for the sale of work aboard, its/on Laboration
SIACE
with outeide-todies in sint-productions, its endaveavour
Tral
titmakes money and ifts ajsarming ability to throw it away
on abortive schemes, Is such a thing a Beritish Theatre
Johe Cn
Authority, cantrolling more and more th eatres andmanaga
ments up and-down the bountry,/difiioult to visualise?
yn alndiy.
It cO uld start from a tiny beginning.
The BBC did.
plss It might only have one producer-management det-up, mue
eay at the-Arts theatre, end one programme department a Le
fiplece,
Tou
in-chorge-ofit, but at least the money that went out cils
would be live money, with a chance of CO ming back with a
lepra y profit, instead of a as at present being dead, like all
charity money. At presnt you put your shirt on a prod=
uction and make a condition that you have a claim on the
rights, without looking in on how the thingxis izaatdxaboa


Bu Ha,BTA, Lavit piancada 'Studs Hlr' phran @
2 2uplas.nld be te dole recewe
- hou C Wen Kud
dnis
Irajm,
the money is spent or how' the play i's purveyed to potential A
alio
foreign buyers. The BTA could arrange co-productions, on
Con taniel
ax/espense sharing basis, not only with foreign theatres
butyhone and foreign TV C ompanies. hione BBC producer Who'
Ven
hor
happens to know that Germany is a uflling audienee of Eng-
telt
Hioh telent-brings in a vast revenue every year in-eo-pre-
duetions and sales, which exemple if followed
threugh
methodieally, whioh t isn't, would The BTA would be
able
M to sebl plays abroad beforé production, because 1ts word
etim
wou.d be taken as a guarantee of production,as the BBC'S
is in the matter of TV. fa a Xhm fi - leh' 'heildy * pre C kerou-hoe
Lns
I have noticed in televsiosion that the directors who
spend béyond'their budgets are usually free-lance, and that
the men who breathe down their necks are Establishment.
Hhe
n Ika II you/have no one from 'Establishment'/you Invite(chaos.
talz
I don't mean civil servants, any more than you think ofa
Ans Lnal civil servant When you think of a BBC producer, executive
or otherwise.Befou must have someone there whose mind
has more than one project to occupy it, and who kmonsthat
wha can judge whether to cut down on one protectore rather
poor project in order to help a good one. As it is;Arts
inevilily Council money/must gomore and more to financing private
whim, and-bolatering whatever/warld
hypni
happens to get the
publicity, irrespective of its value or integrity.
The end result ofythis-hephazard subsidising is the
aee
establishment of a number of prova te theatrical enclaves,
and of nearly as bad a situation as there would be if ali
the theatres in the land were private oommercial manage-
ments. The BBC too cosnsists of little, and also rather
private, empires 2 But theemperors daclineand even
sometimes fallat a terrifie rate, a
there 16-f really
scandalous situation in any of a present private theatrical
enclavess ST
oult to exposé t beeatse"no one can
look in.from the outside. Sutlittle happens in the BBC tct lc
without the press knowing about it son oner or later; sad
mostly because we think of the BBC as our owm, the lic=ence
payers creations ot dispersed theatres have a lookof
exclusive indepordenee/oohahat goes on at the National,
the Royal Court, the ldwyeh
nobody bueiness.
C Ii i C L
a tte
propl taiole relek th G + a -
What I am saying is EkatzthazRBXaXENZapMaEtt not that
the Arts Council can produce new imagination or new aud-
iences in Engiand Britain but that itcan exploit the ste
fact that both are/there, by putting its "moniey into the
theatre actively instead of in the way of charity, which
is as we all know (and particular ly you)knomy, i para-
lySing to the recipient.
What in fact the Arts Council has done, far from
helping to ureate a new kind of theatre, or even a mild
degree of theatrical life in England-(though wihtout it He Concil
there would benone at all), is to pu't the clock back
over fifty years to the bad old days of the actor-manager. e
That actors should never be in charge of theatres should
be obvious to anyone who has worked with them.for Longer auy leuyth 7
ime thanone rehearsal. They are called_to a very e: xacting


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profession indeed, which requirs total concentration, and
wl hile some of them may direct quite nicely now and then,
they are not- the best people to judge a play at its birth
in script form, or to talk to writers on possible subjects
for dramatisation, or to sustain (as a manager must) the y a elfenes
right air of sympathetic scepticism towards tie actors/in
the ir timesof trouble (which_is nearly always).""
An actor's theatre is therefore never a wroter*s
theatres. It soon loses touch with its public, for the
very simple reas on that actors have to lead a highly
spec ialiased life closed off tfrom the rest of society
(they really do live in the dark)oAnd then,as we all
Slu
know, they are/given to dreams ofograndeur, and to the
emotional stimulus of fashion. GA producer's theatre,
on the othervhand, has always been a writer's
Granville
theatrefo
Barker, Stanislavsjy, Reinhardt, Antoine,
a Ahcony
Copeau, Baty were always in conversation with writers,
and encouraging people to take a dab at writing for the
stage. T.S.Eliot would never have written the plays
he did without the invitation of a
produoer-nanager,
Martin
And Browne
Chuitph
Browne.
was responsbile too for
the emergence offFry ar a tim of dire moribundity in
the Wes t End theatre. The producer-man.@ger must have
new plays, he must have new life, and he knows that this
Ite
can only P low from outside. NSTR 1 H
MANAGERS SHAN)
wyg
pyp Norman Marshall in a book on producing has an inter-
palun
esting argument that the law operating from 1939 to 1953
forbidding the buildingof new theatres or even the conver-
sion of burne, depots sheds/Tinto theatre form, turned
many able and genthusiastic young directors away from the
Ecl
thontme stage when they came out of the army, and put
the whole initaitive for theatrical life into the hands
n cll
of the commercial combines. Hugh Hunt, Tyrone Guthrie,
umnty's
Giegul, Brooke, Olivier, Glen Byam Shaw, Anthony Quayle,
Michaei Benthall---thfepae were the diréctors who emerged
or thrived on that state of affairs, namely men who con-
centra ted on the classics beçause convinced that there
were no 'ggod new plays', without realisising that the
responsibility for 'good new plays' rested entirely and
absolutely on themselves: When a 'good new play' did
happen,-8e-it-tendedt-tended-to-at the-Gourtunder-Devinets
menegement, it .happened because of a producer-manager
(like Devine), and the above directors sat and watched
it, and 'absorbed' the new material accordingly..
Rog
Now the Arts Council, instead of making it possible
for something new to come about, by undoing the bad work
of 1939-1953, simply got hold of the old order and stuffed
money into it, though/without wanting to cemseiously in
the least. (tojudge by themeney italse stuffed-into
the proxineiel-reps like Peter Cheesemean*sh, Since
there were no established producer-managers (inevitably)
the actor-managers had to be used, or rather created,


together with difectors whohad shown the utmost con-
tempt for the witer and who were clearly out to est-
ablish their oyn brilliance at the cost of everything
esle, even when they purported to have political or social
consciencesgh Thus you put the theatre back fifty years
at a time when England had the finest body of actors and
actressec inthe world, and perhaps the finest dramatic
writers. You have therefore got a situation now where
thousands of playscripts have been created, but not a
- / N theatre to put them in. Pou-have thepefore used Your money
te build up a quite impossiblè situation, And you-eenfese H d
this-to-beso-by-withdrewing the Authorts Grants scheme,
and-repiecing itwithaseheme putting theentiresontrol
of the writer in-the-hands of the producer-managor, exeept
that there are almostno genuine producer-manageré, who
lefpmeor
are prejeeting more than private peliey-and-semetimes-
a-poliey-of-dowright +
The rsult is that the foreigner who comes to Londan
for its theatre, having seen an English repertory company phongy
Gasos
on/tour, or say Joan Littlewood's OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR,
are simply s tunned to see something-feer-below the standards levelis
of what their hometown would put on with a decidedly in-
ferior troupe. No continental with the smallest respect
for the theatre could fail to be, appalled say by the tawdry,
mocking, old-fashioned but above ali utterly wrong prod-
uction of THE DANCE OF DEATH at the National. An actor
alone simply cannot place a play in life, he can't weld
it, by means of a production, to the expectant outside
world, because je is necessarily rather ignorant of the
outside world. When he reads a script he invariably
approaches it in.the worst possible way, as a vehicle
for actors and actresses, arther therfa dramatic vehicle
for theexpression of-the truth. Only the born producer,
with one foot in the theatre and one foot out, can put
him right about the degree of truthfulness, abd even some-
times) the degree of craftsmanship. Actors are astonishly
blind'to the overall meaning of the plays they are in.
It would be a wonder---seeing the concentration on one
part required of them---if they weren't. And here is
John Neville putting up his own theatre---with, presumably,
one or two Arts Councii 'trainee directors' under himt
What a ludicrous piece of typiccally English cart before
the horeeness!
I am sure that as there are serious playwrights
thwarted of performance, there are thwarted producers too,
and I don't mean just directors but men who want to run
the ir own theatres, and I don't mean necessarily one-
Cacl
manager one-theatre) but several managers/in oharge of a
different bmhacheg, and each with his allocation of
performence-time. I see no reas on why there shouldn't
rol
be departments under the aegis of the BTA extending in
the end perhaps to all but a few of the West End Theatres, ,
so that the presenta 'impresarios' as they like to think
of themselves, are forc ed to combine into an Independent
bcv frd


a BTAheme
nie ls
Theatre Authority, , Whose standards would have to .eompete
with those of the BTA. Eventualty the auther- -sinee
ong nWest-Endl runsof two and thrée years W ould tend
to cease, given the number of new (and profitable) pro-
ductions fjust as in books the old bestselling term m
'bestseller' tsnow applied to sales of about a tenth
of what they were ten,years ago, ' through the intenser -
production of books) would be paid a larger dowm payment
on signature of contract, and then a repeat fee, ra ther
-on the present TV lines.
Plays would be con mmissoned, not charitably through
perajasrector using- Arts Çounc il money, but realistically
as in TV and publishing, by means, of an advance on the
later fee or royalties. Hereagin the-tendencey
Above all/you would no longer fira that the author
'froze', do on getting the commission, as I belive you have
the
found in the pastglthough what sort of writer it is who
Cuncil
freezes on getting money I don't know erhaps that
whole scheme was useless to discoverthé real writers,
as it was useless to discover the theatres to put their
products on in.
The fact is, as we are both now agreed, that the puse
ac t of charity, (in this casea grant to.help the writer al loa 9z
to Create) haslthe fregoutn Tesult/that the recipient
wan
losés Vt will to work. VTha t S imply couldn't happen
if Arts Counc il money was vested in an Arts Courc il
producer, anoweralne h c- As Cmcil puyaune -plauw. lc ell eul
Thpt e Hiv Csuts C fer)
There are an number'of people with thrity-or so
uip icl years of theatrical experience behind them who at prestent
can't find their place, but are brimming with ideas,
and would benefit from a regular inc ome as producers or
programme planners in the BTA. They would be able to
give vent to their ideas, instead of having to approach
private managements with scripts amd schemes only to
be told that this or that 'name f is what the management
is after, however disasrtrous for the production.
Even the small amount of money that the Drama department
of the Arts Council hasfc ould have been used to mobilise
writers, producers, designers, FOH managers in one bold
design. ju Byt as a neutral body you 'can do nothing but
Lugon
fiddle with-established warks, ud lay h keef ut. 2 the pe auetae ker
G L d a
I don't think anybody would be afraid of the Council 7 can
becoming a dictator, a State Body breathing down our necks,
any more than the BBC is that. As it 1s, on the contrary,
the Council is.financing private dictatorships in the
theatre at a supendous annual price. And because t e
receipt of Arts-Courcil Lmoney carries nothing bu the
most shadowy reposnisbility, it naturally breeds' cliques;
and sery.exclusive ones too, which once in charge of a
theatre cannot be unseated, ui Hhoul hhe Cnul ley A 'C CL
npertahs
K In SERT **
Very sibcerely yours,
PS. A ynyy Rahormen wulleed ile A gada this him-


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Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 1LB Tel: 01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
Dear Mr Klug,
You may remember that I came to you two or three years
ago with Tony Jacobsen about the possibility of starting a
theatre in the Fulham area. All the sites offered me by the
Hammersmith Borough Council proved. unsuitable. But today I
visited the Wést Centre Hotel and. found that you have already
built the finest theatrical site in London. I don't know
whether this hotel is still in your hands but a quarter of
the space available at present for exhibitions inside the
hotel would be adequate for a theatre capablé in terms of
seating capacity of paying for itself. The side-entrance
is a perfect theatre entrance, the foyer too is perfectly
equipped, with its cloakroom and its.access to two bars.
There is a car park. In New. York as you probably know it
was the hotel-theatre that put the Hotel Martinique on the
map. We. have seen the extraordinary, success of the convers-
ion of the Essoldo cinema in the King's Road into a theatre,
and something equivalent is needed for the young in Fulham,
apart from the professional classes who have. moved - out to
Wandsworth and Putnèy. I- am told by the Arts Council that
thereis a long list of companies waiting to move their prod-
uctions into theatres, and that most theatres in England are
booked up till September 1975 and éven 1976. West Énd theatres
do fall free but their cost puts them. outside the réach of
all but the top managements. Thé theatre-hotel combination
seems to me to ensure that overheads are minimal, and that
the usual difficulties of the subsidised theatre are avoided.
The hotel bars and restaurant would benefit greatly, and the
publicity would be mutually advantageous. Tom Saunders.
will take a. leading part in: this project and tells me that
a portable theatre could even be designed inside the area.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


Chustapne
Sal
Troyde Theake
Ronald Wiiain
FUT Mot
Suon
Nick Neut
onail gor
The Strat ifrel Eost -
Theare Reyal
saatend


Giti) 790 a255
STA


DauN
Clo ICA Nash House 12 Carlton House Terrace London SW1 Y5AH
DRUM
is a multiracial group of people who want
to see black artists in Britain given a
chance.
DRUM
is primarily concerned with the work of
artists of Afro-Caribbean descent because
it is they who have been the worst victims
of cultural deprivation in the past and
who are suffering most from cultural
alienation now.
DRUM
sets out to redress the balance. More
than that, DRUM will enable black people
to make a major cultural contribution to
the community as a whole.
DRUM
acknowledges that many attempts have been
made in the past to help black artists in
Britain, but recognises that most have
failed for lack of a clear policy, firm
direction, or co-ordination of effort.
DRUM
proposes to find out who is doing what and
then to produce the best work it can find
where it can be seen and enjoyed by the
most people. That means drama, poetry,
literature, music, dance, television,
film, painting, sculpture.
DRUM
will have its centre in London but offers
its services and facilities to artists
from every part of the country.
Committee
Chairman
Joe Aveline
Cy Grant 348-2191
Gus John
Sec/Project Organiser
Chris Konyils
John Mapondera 346-4220
Helen McEachrane
Asst. Sec.
Gurmukh Singh
Tania Rose
Eric Smellie
Charitable status applied for


DEUT - : '
C/o ICA Nash House 12 Carlton House Terrace London SW1 Y5AH
ARTS CENTRE
At a time when society as a whole is concerned about the quality of
life of the young black generation, concerned about the sense of
deprivation within black communities, and increasing reports which
suggest that we are dealing with a group of young adults who are
both energetic'and disenchanted, we feel that the establishment of
a national centre for artistic expression related to the local
experience of black people in Britain and to the international
scene, is both necessary and urgent.
Proposals for such a centre arise from the varied experiences of
black people who have for many years been living in and interacting
with this society. The group immediately concerned with this project
consists of black artists and of individuals whose work has involved
them in monitoring the experiences of the black community, and
particularly the experiences of young blacks.
It has been difficult for black artists to develop individual
potential. Black artists are caught on the horns of a dilemma.
This is best illustrated in terms of theatre. On the one hand,
black artists are claiming, with some justice, that their
professional skills ought to be deployed in roles which are not
written specifically for black people so as to give them more
opportunities within a wider range of artistic expression. On
the other hand, such opportunities as they get for employing
their skills and developing their talents have been limited to
roles specifically needing black people. The kinds of projects
in which they are asked to play a part are usually geared to the
expression of a cultural tradition which is very largely white-
orientated and to an even larger extent, British-orientated.
In the last decade it has become apparent to innovators within
the life of the black community in Britain, that young people
are seeking new forms in which to express their experience of
living. Their growth in identity, their awareness of new
movements in the black world scene and more particularly the
black culture which they have had to rediscover and then to
develop, is a result of society's unwillingness. to accommodate
them as black people. In this context, black artists in every
medium are claiming that, given the cultural bias to which they
are exposed in the society in which they have to live, it is
important to develop and project the arts as created by the
black peoples of the world.
Committee
Chairman
Joe Aveline
Cy Grant. 348-2191
Gus John
Sec/Project Organiser
Chris Konyils
John Mapondera 346-4220
Helen McEachrane
Asst. Sec.
Gurmukh Singh
Tania Rose
Eric Smellie
Charitable status applied for


DRUN
Clo ICA Nash House 12 Carlton House Terrace London SW1 Y5AH
This is one of a number of developments which many are beginning to
recognise as crucial, not only to the future of black people within
this society, but also to that society's own regeneration and enrich-
ment through a growing awareness of the importance of other people
and other cultures.
London is an obvious choice as the most suitable location for a
national centre for the arts of black people, not only because of
the high percentage of black people who live in the Greater London
area, but also because it is easily accessible to visiting artists
and companies from abroad. But it is a primary objective of the
centre to encourage black artists working in smaller communities
or indeed anywhere - throughout Britain, by giving them a focal
point at which they can display their talents and exhibit their
work to the largest possible audience. The policy of the centre
will be based on the principle that programmes and exhibitions will
be changed sufficiently often to provide the maximum opportunity for
artists of demonstrable merit in any medium and from every quarter.
The Centre is intended to incorporate the following functions:-
Theatre
Arts Gallery
Special Events
Concerts/Poetry Readings/Films/
Lectures
Workshops related to the above activities
Audio-Visual facilities
The Centre will be administered by a Trust* consisting of the
initiating committee, and will undertake a programme of activities
on the lines indicated above on a phased basis, no matter how modest
their beginnings.
Like all other cultural organisations, the DRUM Arts Centre looks to
public bodies, established charities and individuals, for part of their
financial needs.
Joe Aveline
Helen McEachrane
Cy Grant
Tania Rose
Gus John
Gurmukh Singh
Chris Konyils
Eric Smellie
John Maj pondera
Committee for the Drum Arts Centre
*Application has been made for registration as a charitable trust.
Committee
Chairman
Joe Aveline
Cy Grant 348-2191
Gus John
Sec/Project Organiser
Chris Konyils
John Mapondera 346-4220
Helen McEachrane
Asst. Sec.
Gurmukh Singh
Tania Rose
Eric Smellie
Charitable status applied for


BLACK THEATRE OF PRAGUE
Dear Ann,
This is just to say that I'll be making out
a rough budget for the fifteen-minute live pre-
sentation you suggest as soon as I know about
your choice of venue. Do you want me to negot-
iate with the Mayfair theatre for you? I
think the New London quite unsuitable, whereas
the Mayfair is geared to tradè shows and accust-
omed to handle, and the manager there is very
amenable.
The show itself présents no technical
difficulties whatsoever. We shall use four
dancers and an experienced choreographic
director. I shall be working with Ronnie Lee,
who directed HAIR in Germany, on the basic
ideas, and tie them in with a specially com-
posed tape fromthe Mott the Hoople group.
UV paint, by the way, will almost certainly
not corréspond exactly with the colour of
your carpet squares, but I expect you know
this.
If we are going ahead on this I would
like to know what information about the squares
you wish to get over,apart from general delight,
what commentary you think essential and what
the film will be about. I think it important
that we see the film as soon as possible so that
it can be integrated with the live show.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


STAGESOUND (LONDON) LIMITED AND THEATRE PROJECTS
Stagesound Limited, the sound company founded by the
late Bill Walton, becomes on Olst October, 1974, a
member of the Theatre Projects Group.
The facilities of Stagesound and Theatre Projects Sound
being entirely complementary, their integration will
provide a more comprehensive and efficient service for
the Entertainment Industry and in the fields of
Education and Industrial Training.
For Audio-Visual and Educational recordings the Group
offers a production service which includes advice,
engagement of artists and all facilities required for
specialised programmes including those in foreign
languages.
At our Langley Street headquarters will be found the
enlarged sound equipment hire department, sound equipment
design and manufacture, high speed tape copying, ALTEC (UK)
Sales and general administration. (Telephone 01-240, 0955)
At 11-13 Neals Yard, w.C.2., (a five minute walk from
Langley Street) is the recording studio with facilities
from Mono to eight-track, the largest commercial sound
effects library in the country and two tape mixing/editing
suites. An additional small voice-over studio will
shortly be under construction. (Telephone 01-240 5411)
The existing 16/35mm film dubbing and transfer facilities
will remain at 28 Maiden Lane, W.C.2. (Telephone 01-240 0959)
Theatre Projects provide a complete service for the
Entertainment Industry. The Group specialises in Lighting,
Sound and Audio-Visual equipment hire and sales, with a Sound
and Lighting Design service. Theatre Projects are the sole
U.K. agents for ALTEC sound equipment and Rosco Colour Media.
The Group is also internationally engaged in Theatre Consultancy
and Design and in production for theatre, films and television.
All correspondence should be sent to the THEATRE PROJECTS
registered office at 10 Long Acre, London WC2E 9LN
27th September, 1974


BLACK THEATRE OF PRAGUE
Dear Ann,
I think it would not only be cheaper but
produce a much more professional show if I
devised the whole thing with my own people
instead of employing another company en bloc.
Ronnie Lee, who directed HAIR very successfully
in Germany, would work with me on the ideas,
and Morgan Fisher could do the stereophonic
back-up in an amusing sort of way---plucking
sounds as the carpet squares fall into place,
with perhaps UV-strobe flicker lighting to
heighten the effect. There could be a few
words of commentary here and there, but these
should be light dabs simply to pinpoint the
action. One really has got to get the press
amused---and flattered by the speed and im-
peccable level of performance. This needs
ample rehearsal--ten days or two weeks-
especially as one has to go into costume
as soon as possible.
I'll make out a rough budget as soon as
I can in the New Year. Please let me know
if you get the Mayfair theatre, or want me
to negotiate for it.
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


Dear Clive,
THE DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
Many thanks for yours of the 11th which I read
to a: Board meeting of the Dark and Light Theatre last
week.
There was a lot of gratification about the
interest shown on your side. When I saw Michael
Kustow at the National a couple of weeks ago he
suggested that we get together a production budget
for the coming year and present it to Lambeth
Council, and we are doing this in the hope of getting
something like $20,000 out of them. As to the re-
orientation of your policy towards the Dark and
Light Theatre, and our discussing together my
'umbrella' plan for taking productions into the
major theatres, I imagine we all agree that this
must depend on the professional level of the coming
productions.
You will have received Norman Beaton's pro-
gramme and estimates for the coming year. The
Board feels that the £29,000 quoted for estimated
box office receipts is over optimistic, and has
asked me to tell you that they think half of that
sum nearer the mark. The amount hoped for from
the Arts Council is £13,000.
DRUM ARTS CENTRE
I have been in discussion with Cy Grant and
John Mapondera about the possibility of associating
my company in some way with their coming DRUM ARTS
CENTRE. They would like me to select a few plays
by black authors for touring next year under the
DRUM banner, and to set them up, I believe together
with Oscar Loewenstein. One of these plays will
be for the ICA Festival in June.
Secondly, as you may remember, I talked to you
some time back about a big-cast black play of mine
called CHRISTOPHE which I am setting up with a
committee of black people. My discussions with


PORTSLADE PRODUCTIONS
Cy Grant have been mainly about this.
He and
Mapondera suggest that I tour CHRISTOPHE before
London and get your help in this while they invite
the Community Relations Commission to regard the
tour as a 'self-help* project, which. I believe is
possible. I don't think it realistic to approach
you for financial help, in such an expensive pro-
duction, but finding likely slots in the provinces
would be most useful. Do you think you could
put the right colleague in the picture about me,
so that something could be started there, both
for CHRISTOPHE and the smaller cast plays we shall
be setting up for DRUM?
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


BLACK THEATRE OF PRAGUE
Dear Mr Wimprèss,
Further to our telephone conversations
earlier this week, we shall be looking for
a small troupe capable of presenting Black
Theatre of Prague for the purpose of advert-
ising carpet squares. It will be an ex-
clusively Press show, to take place at
11.00 a.am on March 20 1975 at a West End
venue, possibly the New London theatre
(though not in the main auditorium).
The performance will last fifteen minutes.
The earlier I can get together with the
troupe to discuss the manufacturers'
artistic requirements the better.
With best wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


The Arts Council of Great Britain
1osPiccadillyL London WIVOAU
Telephone OI-6299495
Telegrams AmecLondon WI
Chairman Patrick Gibson
Secretary-General Sir Hugh Willatt
11th December, 1974
Maurice Rowdon, Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street,
London,
SW6 1LB
Dear Maurice,
Thank you for your letter in support of the Dark and Light Theatre. It
is, of course, too early to say what we will be able to do for the Dark
and Light in the next financial year; as Norman Beaton is aware, there
is very little hope of any further assistance from us before March 31st.
As you know, the Arts Council currently regards the company as a touring
operation, and sees the work als Longfield Hall as the responsibility of
the Local Authority.
The suggestion you make is, however, an interesting one. I take it that
you would wish to see the Dark and Light Theatre as an umbrella organisation
offering Black productions to other theatres across the country. If this
were to become policy, we would obviously need to discuss it with you in
detail.
Yours sincerely,
lempes
Clive Tempest
Drama Officer


DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
: BLDGET FIGURES
ADMINISTRATION (52 weeks)
1 x Director (overall policy on Board) + expenses
1 x Associate Director (Artistic & day-to-day running)
1 x Administrator/Theatre Manager/Bar
1 x Secretary
1 x Front of House/Part-time
Technical
1 x Stage Tanager/Production Manager
1 x A.S.M.
Publicity
1 x P.R. exponsas
Other Administrativo Expenses
Talephone
Travel
Bank Charges
Ropatre and Renewals.
Statihnety, brochures
Scripts, printing and postage
Cleaning
Sundries
N.H.I. for acting and additional technical étart
TOTAL EXPENDITURE 1975
Admi inistration
Production Costs
Raceipte
Box Office
Rental of Hall
EFFECTIVE ANNUAL SUBSIDY


PLAY MAS
11 actors
Actorst 2 X £40 * 8 woeks -
9x £35 x 8 weeks
Understudiest 2 x 30 x 7 weeks
- Dirèctor x £50 x 2 weeke.
4 1% gross * 6 weëks (say)
Author's Royalty x 7%% x 6-weeke
Bandt 3x £35 x 6 weeks
Lightings 1 x £50 x 1 week
Extra A,S.M. x £25x 8 weeks
Publidity/Programtes
Sets etc./costumes by arrangement wi th
the Royal Court. Theatre
Estimated. Box Office receipts
Programmeet 6.weeks x E40
Advertising in Programmes.
sày
Bar receipte
éay.
Less Expendi iture
Projected Profit
Rumber of actors employedi 13


THE EMPEROR AND THE ARCHITECT
3 actors
Actoret (Playing) 2 x £45.x 4 weeks
(Reheareal) 2 * £35 x 3 weeks
Understudys 1 x É35 * 7 weeks
Diroctor X É150
* 1% gross
Author's Royalty @ 77% gross
Lightings 1 x £50
Publicity
Set
Costumes
Estimated Box Office receipts
Programmest 4 weeks x £20
Advertising in Programmes
say
Bar receipts-
sày
Loss Expendituré
Projooted Profit 6e
Number of actors employed: 3
N.B. Interest has been shown in this production by Jonathan miller I spoke to
Jonathan Miller about the play and "Waiting for Godot', which 1 want to set
inthe Transvaal. He says he would be interested in directing either play.
I have to phone him later this week to 88e when his achedule will allow him
to dos.
"tact


THE KARL MARX PLAY
Actorst loadst 3 x E35 x 4 (tehearsals)
3 x £45 x 4. (playing)
supportss 3 X £35 x 8 weeks
5 x £40 x 5 weeks
Understudiest 2 X £30* 6 wéeks
Diroctor x $200
2%% groes.
say
Author'ts Royatly 71% * 4 weeke
eay
Lighting. 1 x E120
Extra A.S.M.st 2. x £25 x 5 woeks
Rublieity/Programmes
Set
Costumes
Estimated Box office receipts
Programmess 4 wooke x £30
Advertising in programmes
say
Bar recoipts
say
Estimated. Loss
Arts Council Néw Play Production. Grant
Numbér of actors employeds - 13


JUMBIE STREET DANCE
Actorsi 3 x't35 * 7 weeke
Understudiess 2 * £30.x weoks
Directort 1 X. E150
4 1% gross:
Author's Royaltiest 72% grose
Lightingt 1x £50
Aubliaity
Set
Costumos/Props etel
Estimated Box Office Receipts
Programmes
Advertising
Bar: féceipts
Less expenditure
Estimated profit :
Actore, employeds $


WAITING FOR GODOT (Set in South Africa)
Rehearsalss 4 weoket Playings 4 weeks
Actorst 5 * E35 x 8 weeks
Understudiess 2 x £30 x 6 weeks
Diréctor: 1 X £250.00
Author's Royalties @ 72%
say
Lightings 1 * £75
Publicity/Programmes
Set
Costunes
Props
Estimated Box Office receipts
Programmes
éo: 00
Advertising in Programmes
Bar receipts
Less Expenditure
Estimated Profit :
Number of actors employods 7


RÉVUE for. summer tour
Actoret B x E35 * 4: weeke (rehearsal):
B x £40 x 6 weeks. (playing)
Bande - 3 x £40 x. 5.weoks
Understudies: 2 x E30 x 7 weeks
Director
Lighting
Publicity
Costumesd
Piops
Musical Directors 4 weeks *. £40
Author's Royaltios
Estimated Box Office Receipts
Progremmes
Advortising
Ber-Receipts
Loss Expenditure
Estimated Profit :
Number of Actors amployeds 10


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Thomley,
I am enclosing a black play of mine called
CHRISTOPHE which I would like you to consider for
this coming year's Festival. This will be mount-
ed as a: multi-medial production, with film and
specially composed sound,. for a big stage.. It
has already génerated a lot of interest among the
top professional black actors in this country as
a shopwindow not only for the best black acting
but for. black history generally, not to say the
modérn black problem. This coming year will
see a lot of attention devoted to black theatre,
with the support of the Arts Council, the Commun-
ity Relations Commission. and the Greater London
Arts Association. I shall be arranging, for
several plays by black playwrights to be performed
under the banner of Cy Grant's DRUM ARTS CENTRE
which, will be opening shortly in London, its
theatre. sidé in the hands of Oscar Loewenstein.
With the increase of racial incidents in NW
England' (69%) recently, there is a' lot of official
feeling that something has to be done right away.
And one of the things to be doné is getting black
people on both sides of the proscenium arch. I
feel the Festival could play an important role
in this.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


vitnpin
CHRISTOPHE
Dear Morgan,
This is the script we talked about the other
day with Ronnie Lee.
When the play is properly set up and the
financing starts we would have to enter a prof-
essional relationship of course, and get some-
thing down on paper: But meanwhile please see
if you like the script and we could perhaps ex-
change a few preliminary ideas.
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


THE CASE FOR A BLACK THEATRE WORKSHOP
The case for a black theatre workshop really rests on the
question of whether it is separatist to argue for a black
consciousness.
In the best of all possible worlds, there is no place
for arbitrary categories like race, nationality and class.
But in the world as it is I a world in which racial,
national and class distinctions are overlaid with
discriminatory judgments = it is disingenuous to call
black selfhood separatist.
To argue for an English cultural tradition distinct from
a French tradition, a European mind distinguishable from
the American mind, a working class idiom unaffected by
middle class values is separatist. But it is separatism
in the cause of variety, pluralism, humanness, genuine
requality. Why on earth should the English deny or repress
their Englishness, or the working class their proletarianness"?
-Black artists should be equally free to call their art
black.
"We are far more likely to achieve a society in which
resentment is kept within bounds if society is thought of
not as a homogenous mass but as a system of overlapping
circles. This has really two components; in a society
which is to be reasonably harmonious, there will have to
be full opportunity for the éxpression of a diversity for
which the Welsh language, the Sikh turban, may serve as
symbols. But there,must also be overlapping of groups,
So that no one category has overriding priority and people
can win.esteem in a variety of ways. (Philip Mason,
"Patterns of Dominance")
The Drum Theatre need not be more separatist than the
National Theatre is chauvinistic. Is the Welsh National
Eisteddfod harmfully separatist?
To be black is to be acutely aware of being black. We
feel we are black much more consciously than whites feel
they are white. White men gave us our racial self-
consciousness. Racial oppression has meant that it is
first of his race that the black man must take conscience.
He must compel recognition of himself as a man. And he
can only do so by turning what has been a handicap for
300 years into a "source of pride. He is black. He is
held to authenticity. In asserting himself as Black in
the face of White, his blackness - the source of his
identity - must be made explicit for it to evolve into a
more meaningful, less separatist identity.


We resent having to identify ourselves in terms of skin
colour. But this is the state of affairs that imperialism
has created. Equally, industrialisation has produced a
situation in which working people define themselves
principally by class. We may bemoan the fact, but it is
a fact, and the reality of the fact finds expression, for
example, in the "separatist" art of DH Lawrence.
We are told that our black identity the identity our
oppressors gave us - must be repressed, since otherwise we
set ourselves apart. This is doubly to oppress us. We
must be free to act out our black experience, give it free
artistic rein, and discover unashamedly for ourselves a
new selfhood in which race is irrelevant.
If great art springs from great suffering, what theatre!
The difficulty is to find a social and cultural structure
that facilitates and encourages expression of the black
experience. I think this is what divides modern opinion.
Some believe that the present theatre is adequate. I
believe that the black message requires a black medium
for it to be authentic, fearless and in good faith.
Ironically, racialist South Africa has a black theatre
-workshop in Natal, and their production - of "Umabatha" for
the World Theatre Season 1972/73 in London was an outstanding
success. Witness also the success of the recent South
African Season at the Royal Court Theatre. Yet we in
London have no Black Theatre.
For years, black thinkers believed that their blackness
alone made no difference. Now I believe.that. 300 years of
living out an alien identity is too great a psychological
mask to discard lightly. A black theatre will act as a
necessary centre of black consciousness - a laboratory
for those who have.s shared the experience of racial
oppression to discover a new selfhood through art. As
with black music and drama in the States, a black centre
for the arts in London would have real potential for the
emancipation of the most deprived section of the community.
The very scarcity of black actors in the present theatre
reflects uniquely and most glaringly the failure of the
integrationist ethic - an ethic that always turns out to
mean accomodation to white institutions and values.
Invariably, it is we who must integrate with them; we who
must adapt and fit in. As long as we are extras on the
stage of life we will be regarded as outsiders. The


freedom to play leading parts can only be attained by
ourselves acting out our real selves. To be free, we need
our - own stage.
"In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in
the human kingdom, define or be defined.' " (Thomas S Szasz,
"The Second Sin") It's time we took over the definition
of ourselves.
"The ultimate unity which will draw together all the
oppressed in the same combat must be preceded by that which
I shall name the moment of separation or of negativity.
This antiracist racism is the sole road which can lead to
the abolition of the differences of race." (Jean-Paul Sartre,
"Black Orpheus")
Cy Grant
8_ March 1974


Arnie ygo
Muin
CA Amold
Home Mics (Fmet hatn-Divinion)
LUNAR HOUSE
Wellavey Road
Crglm
CR9 23Y
Surey


The Darh a Light Theatre Limited
LONGFIELD HALL KNATCHBULL ROAD LONDON S.E.5
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Frank Cousins
BOX OFFICE 01-274 4070
ADMINISTRATOR Manley Young
ADMINISTRATION 01-274 4210
Mr. Maurice Rowdon,
5 Tamworth Street,
LONDON, S.W.6
4th December 1974
Dear Maurice,
I would like to invite you and guest to the first public performance
of 'ANANSI and THE STRAWBERRY QUEEN' - a spectacular folk/rock
Christmas musical directed by Norman Beaton at the Dark and Light
Theatre on Thursday 26th December commencing at 7.30pm.
Perhaps you would be good enough to write or telephone and confirm
if this date will be convenient for you.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Frank Cousins
ARTISTIC DIRÉCTOR
PATRONS George Baker, John Fraser M.P. Sirl Reginald Goodwin, Canon Harvey Hinds, Geoffrey Pattie,M.P. George Strauss M.P.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS Frank Cousins (chairman) Gaie Cousins (secretary) A.G.P. Stuart (treasurer)
REGISTERED OFFICE 34, South Molton Street, London WIY 2BP
REGISTERED IN ENGLAND NO. 958345


: Mermaid Theatre
e y
Puddle Dock, Blackfriars, London, EC4V 3DB.
Box Office: 01 248 7656
Restaurants: 01 248 2835
Offices: 01 236 9521
CR/MPM
Maurice Rowdon Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street,
London, SW6 1LB.
4th December, 1974.
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
Thank you for your letter of 2nd December.
Our present production, COLE, willlbe playing here until 8th March
1975, and programming for the twelve months following has been complete
for some months now.
Perhaps if you could contact us in the Autum of 1975, we would then
be in a more flexible position for discussion.
I am sorry we cannot help you with regard to a main bill production.
However, we do hire out the theatre for single Sunday performances between
seasons of Mermaid Poetry. Do contact me if this should interest you.
With kind regards.
Yours sincerely,
Couine Roinpur
CORINNE RODRIGUEZ,
Manager.
President: Sir Alec Guinness. Chairman: Sir Val Duncan. Governors: Lord Beeching, James Cameron, Bernard Delfont,
David Freeman, Leo Genn, S. Mervyn Herbert, Michael Jordan, Eddie Kulukundis, Alan Lamboll, Sir Bernard Miles,
Jonathan Miller, Louis Mintz, John Murphy, Cyril Stein, G.T. Whyte and Josephine Wilson.
Mermaid Theatre Trust Limited Reg. No. 754018.
V.A.T. Reg. No. 243742075


Hampstead Theatre Club
Founder: James Roose-Evans
SWISS COTTAGE CENTRE LONDON NW3
ADMINISTRATION 722 9224 BOX OFFICE 722 9301
Artistic Director: Michael Rudman General Manager: Ruth Marks
Maurice Rowdon
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
LONDON SW6 1LB
10 December 1974
Dear Maurice Rowdon
Yes, I would be very glad to meet with you. Perhaps you would
give me a ring and we could arrange a convenient time.
Yours sincerely
Michael Rudman
Artistic Director
Directors of Hampstead Theatre Club Limited: : Michael Codron, Richard Cottrell, Margo Ford, Peter Govett (Chairman),
Eddie Kulukundis, Pieter Rogers, James Roose-Evans, Alexander Schouvaloff, Bob Swash, Edmund Tracey


Ideas,for letter to Arts Council, bambeth Borough, Gulbenkian Foundation,
other Trusts, groups that May have funds, for assisting small theatres in
Londont-
The Dark and Light Theatre came into being in Brixton as a results of the
efforts of the founder of the Theatre, Frank Cousins, and with the help
and cooperation of the London Bopough of Lambeth, whereby the Boroughof
Lambeth provided to F.C. a hall, known as Longfield Hall, Knatchbull Road,
S.E.5. where plays, musical plays and other performing arts coubd be
staged.. The Dark and Light Theatre as the name implies, had hoped to
be the first theatre of its kind, where white and black actors could
work together in a constant repertory of plays and where also plays
performed entirely by black actors ànd written by black writers 9
wether from this country or abroad, could be performed and seen by
the local public and any other people, who felt that the programmes
presented were worth travelling to Brixton for. The 1971-72 season
appeared to be full of promise - four plays were performed and the
D and L T was gradually becoming known by the public at large.
Some critics who felt that it was their duty to criticise anyaxe work
wherever it was shown travelled the three or four miles south of the
river to the DLT and noticed the first efforts of this theatre company.
Survival of this inititl idea was short-lived- The situation as I
Understand it is as follows:-
Between 1972 and 74 the DLT was forced to abandon this policy of playing
In Longield Hall because the Arts Council had no machinery for giving
money to new London theatres.. If the DLT company was to at all survive
the Arts Council stipulated that insofar as the onlg money available
was for touring companies, that the DLT would have to undertake
touring projects. SThe financial aid given was £5000 poongea
This £5000 was dispersed as the discretion of the Arfs Council and
this discretion implied that the DLT
to perform 2 plays a year,
each both of which had to be toured and 2E4 of which would be given a
grant of 82500.@pamthomeg Each play was to do 7 weeks touring
The tours ran into a number of snags; I gather that the Regional
Arts Association was not in a position to give the DLT any venues
and the theatre had to seek a circuit through the aid of the CRC,
whereby the company played in halls and community centres doing
usually one performance per night per town. The rising costs of
petrol, the fact that one set of handbills and posters would not do
for a week, in other words if one was phaying in a town per night a
postet would have to be designed for each town and each hall. This
kind of cost factor can never be adequately reflected in the Arts
Council's grants of £2500 per play. When one takes into consideration
that administrative costs, stage management, lighting, rehearsal
salaries for artists, pay for artists, touring allowances all have
to be taken into account from this figures of £2500 one could see
that each production was massively under-financed. The consequance
of such a venture as touring was that each production would run at
a loss. This loss, I understand, was to some extent covered by grants
from the CRC which guaranteed each performance up to a loss of875
per playing venue. : After 2 years of touring the DLT's financial
situation is that it is in the region of £4000 overdrawn, or that
the DLT has in the two years of touring been running at a loss of
about £2000 a year. This is at a time when its maximum sabries
have been €18 per week to actors and with petrol costs at beween
35 and 40 pence per gallon. If inflation continues at its present
rate along with the fact that Equity, demands, and rightly so, a
minimum of £35 per week for actors,/with the cost of petrol haing
lund
Frlh yen 19 24
+2 T.guh. Hhor n grecady year dhn grank Are hash
less'


sh Jof
doubled in the course of the last six months, ja the DLT continuek the
policy demanded by the Arts Council it will have to run at a loss of
between #3 and £4000 per year.. Insofar as the DET's bank is now
fXnEEX demanding that its overdanft be settled within the next monthe
it would appear that unless an urgent injection of funds reaches the
DLT or that the Arts Council decides to change its policy dowards the
DLT the theatre may have to go out of existence.. The position is
further complicated by the fact that the Lambeth Borough feels that
having given the DLT the use of Longfield Hall which the Bourd of
Directors think is worth about £2500 a year it is doing as much as it
can to help the theatre, considering that no performances of any kind
take place in the Hall.. The Christmas pantomime is the solitary
exception to this rather dreary rule. There is of course absolutely
no guarantee that if the company were to abandon touring that it would
receive any money from the Lambeth Borough, and this of course places
the theatre on the horns of a rather trzicky dilemma; and that dilemma
is that to continue the Arts Council touring policy will lead to
further insolvency and possible bankruptcy, and not to continue it
may mean the withdrawal by the Arts Council of the only money for
production that comes in to the DLT viz the £5000 per year to touring
productions.
The Board of Directors, at its last meeting, decided that to continue
a touring policy could lead to certain legal irregularities whereby
as a company, if we were supporting an overdraft of the size we have
now incurred and we did not have assets to cover that overdraft,
should the bank foreclose we could be made bankrupt and the Directors
could be made liable. I believe that this is only a technicality, as
we arex a Trust, but in strict legal terminology we could, in fact,
be outside the law, and therefore the touring policy should now be
abandonned. The question now remeains, should the DLT now embark
on a policy of presenting plays at Longfield Hall, where would funds
to promote such productions come from. Inevitably any artistic
director looking at the present situation would have to ask this
question. What should the DLT be all about? The DLT is situatéd
in the Borough of Lambeth. It is the only civic theatre between
the sprawling thex complex of the National Theatre and Wimbledon.. It
is the only civic theatre administered by black people in the whole of
the U.K. It is situated in an area of London that th has a sizeable
proportion of immigrants. When all these factors are taken into
consideration there seems to be an overwhelming argument for its
maintenance and survival. Indeed nearly ereryone to ihom I have
spoken, the Arts Council, the London Borough of Lambeth personnel,
the patrons of the theatre, the Board of Govenors, dundry journalists,
members of various other bodies, including the CRC, have all said
that for the DLT to disappear would be indeed a shame. The problem
is what should the DLT aim for. I believe that this company has a
golden opportunity to present to the public the work of black actors
and black writers to the indigenous population the new immigrant
population in the catchment area south of the Thames, stretching as
far as Wimbledon and perhaps Greenwich. At a recent meeting of the
newly formed Afro-Asian Sub-Committee of Equity, attended by nearly
a hundred Afro-Asian members, it was discovered that there are some
500 A-A members of Equity, which would lead us to believe that there
are possibly another 300 or 400 actors and actresses who may not hold
Equity cards. Most people concerned with the acting profession will
realise that for yearsnon-white actors have been complaining to Equity
and other interested bodies that they are not being given a fair slice
of the acting cake. Repertory companies all over the country do not
reflect in their plays and productions that sizeable percentage of
brethren who are not white, and it would seem to me that the DLT
can be the one theatre in Britain at the moment with work of some of
these actors can be seen.
Wher


To promote the kind of programme whereby productions could be played at
this theatre and still do a revised touring schedule, and by revised I
mean the kind of tour that would not incur a loss, would call for the
kind of grant in the region of E40,000 per year. No one will deny that
in the last 2 years the policy of the Royal Court theatre, wherein it
has employed a resident West Indian playwright, Mkchael Abinsetts, and
produced the works of 2 other West Indians, Barry Rekord and Mustapha
Matura, no one will deny that such a policy has produced the kind of
work that supports the idea, or rather the long-held belief in the baet
black community, that there are writers capable of attracting the public
into the theatre. MM's play Play Mass had the kind of notices that
were once reserved for writers of the calibre of Peter Schaffer, Peter
Nicholls and Alan Aykburn.. Michael Abinsetts' plays have been done at
the Royal Court to fairly triumphant notices and have been reproduced
in sound on BBC radio. Barry Reckord's work has been seen on BBC TV..
A number of very powerful black actors have emerged - Rudopph Walker,
Stefan Kalipha, Mona Hammond, Carmen Munro, Derek Griffiths, in fact
a considerable role of acting a writing talent. I believe that a
deason of plays can be dévised that would a ttract the local community
and that a number sfi could be persuaded to do a production' hep Donald
slat Howarth has expressed the desire to do something for our theatre; sihes bevone
Dotiv whord
couldaleebbe_persuaded-te-do-sosomething at theDLT I-refer-to We
plure
persons-like Jonathan Miller, Roland, Joffe, Bill Bryden, Peter Gill,
Abrrach
David Miles, Alan Strachan, apet athefrgbrsons with whom I have worked
I believe that a policy of including 2 new plays per year would be an andolkuns
attractive proposition to West End managements, whereby the possiblity thal kow
of transfer could always exist. British writers who feel that they aupresed a
have something to say about an immigrant population may find that with desire
the existence of a strong black
and a
team of
bnt
company
good
guest do-sorartton noll
directors, that they would be able to contribute something towards tchett
that very delicate subject of race relations. The DLT, I will reitterate, black
is ideally placetoeo.. the energies of Afro-Asian actors and writers, lomed
British actors, directors and writers into a multi-racial establishment aclort
that the-Bopough of Lambeth,attkmaghxzeXEEKERRMMbouitK all those concerned
with promoting racial harmony and integration of immigrants into the
indigenous population, and a council for the Arts, which was dedicated
to promoting the Arts, irrespective of colour, creed and political
BhLoer
persuasion, could feel justly préud.
A sum of money in the rggion of £40,000 will also allow the DLT to
continue a much more comprehensive touring programme for which I
believe it has established roots all over the country. We have
letters from persons and organisations in various towns and cities
where our tours were performed expressing delight in our work and
hopzing to see our work again. These letters come from allsections
of the community 9 black and white, and to get a respense to theatre
from the black areas of the community is in itself a signal achievement.
In an industry where audiences are falling off to inculcate the hahit
of theatre-going from a new section of the community should be a
welcome step to be encouraged by the Arts Cou rcil and people who want
to see theatre in its present form or for that matter in any form
survive into the 21st century. The success of Play Mas at the Royal
Court demonstrated that immigrant communities will go to the theatre
if the kind of theatre that they want to see exists, and there is no
reason why the DLT cannot continue in the footsteps of the Royal
Court if it were allowed to do so by a more forward-looking policy by
all those agencies who have expressed concern about its survixal.
I have anotated the following ideas as a tentative programme for the
year 1975:-


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr McDougall,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British-Council in connect-
ion with tho coming Lagos Festival, and as she enjoyed
the script so much herself she suggested that you
might be interested in seeing a copy.
She asks that if you do like it could you please
get in touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Codron,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British Council in connect-
ion with the coming Lagos Festival, and as she enjoyed
the script so much herself she suggested that you
might well be interested in it.
She asks that if you do like it could you get
in touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr McDougall,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British Council in connect-
ion with the coming Lagos Fostival, and as she enjoyed
the script so much herself she suggested that you
might well be interosted in producing it.
She asks that if you do like it could you get
in touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Hollis,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British : Council in connect-
ion with the coming Lagos Festival, and as she enjoyed
the script so much herself she suggested you might be
interested in seeing a copy.
She asks that if you do like it could you get
in touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Havergal,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British Council in connect-
ion with the coming Lagos Festival, and as she enjoyed
the script so much herself she suggested I send you a
copy.
She asks that if you are interested in it could
you get in touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Miss Montagu,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British Council in connect-
ion with the coming Lagos Festival, and as she enjoyed
reading the script So much herself she suggested that
you might very well be interested in it.
She asks that if you do like it could you get in
touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Robertson,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black play
with Jane Edgeworth at the British Council in connect-
ion with the coming Lagos Festival, and as she enjoyed
the script so much herself she suggested you might be
interested in seeing a copy.
She asks that if you do like it could you get in
touch with her?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Conville,
I have been advised by Miss Jane Edgeworth
at the British Council to send you the above Black
play, which earlier this year we were discussing
as the British entry for the Lagos Festival.
You may also be interested in Peter Hall's
reaction to the script, and I enclose his recent
letter.
There is some interest at the Palace in
Watford in the script and they would come into
the financing if the opening there were to be the
basis of a tour.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Sir Bernard,
I am sending you the above Black play on the
advice of Miss Jane Edgeworth at the British Council
with whom I have been. discussing it in connection
with the British entry for the Lagos Festival.
I recently sent it to the National Theatre,
and you may be interested in Peter Hall's reaction.
I enclose a copy of his letter.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


With Compliments
Harbottle & Lewis
34 South Molton Street
Solicitors
London W1Y 2BP
Telephone: 01. 629 7633
Cables: Harlex London W1
Telex: 22233
TO AWAIT RETURN
Maurice Rowdon, Esq.,
5 Tamworth Street,
Our reference
London SW6 1 LB.
Your reference


Prospect Theatre
Company
TOBY ROBERTSON director
1/6 FALCONBERG COURT LONDON WIV 5DG
Tel: 01-437 7365/6 Grams: PROSCO LONDON
SP/ML
20th September, 1976.
M. P. Gibbs, Esq.,
Harbottle & Lewis,
34 South Molton Street,
London, W1.
Dear Mr. Gibbs,
Thank you for your letter of 26th August. Unfortunately, I cannot
find any record in the book of CHRISTOPHE by Maurice Rowden ever
being received.
I would be very grateful if you could find out what date it was
sent, and if an acknowledgement was ever recéived from this office
by either Maurice Rowden or yourself. If you did receive acknowledge-
ment then the mistake is ours.
As you know I only arrived at Prospect in July, but understand that
during the summer all outstanding plays were read and returned, and
I am sorry that Maurice's was.not amongst them.
Yours sincerely,
Iha PLe /
Stephen Phillips,
ADMINISTRATOR.
Diroctos: "S. Laurance Harbottla (chaiman): Richard Cottreil: Jahn Hala; lain Mackintosh; Toby Robertson; Dennis Ryland; Timothy Wast; Colton Younger.
Prospect Productions Limited: Pygisterad Office, 1/5 Broad St., Oxdord. Ragistered in England No. 550080


Harbottle & Lewis
34 South Molton Street - London W1Y 2BP
G/jak
SP/ML
Stephan Phillips, Esg.,
Administrator,
Prospeot Theatre Company,
1/6 Faloonberg Court,
London WIV 5DG.
21et September 1976
Dear Mr. Phillips,
Maurice Rowdon, Esg.
Thank you for your lotter of the 20th September and I have referred thia to
Maurioe Rowdon. I think he is abroad at the noment but no doubt he will,
get in touch with you on his return.
Yours sinoerely,
Mark P. Gibba
bcc: Maurice Rowdon, Eg9. (w/enc)


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Sir Bernard,
On 3 October last I sent you a copy of the
above Black play, on the advice of the Head of
Drama at the British Council, with whom I had
been discussing it as the possible British entry
for the Lagos Festival. I also enclosed a
letter from Peter Hall about the play which I
thought might intefest yous
I am just checking that the script and
enclosure reached you, as we are finding recent-
ly that scripts can get lost in the post.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


possible again after a forced landing. Nothing
crippled a dog's confidence so much as a mistake
which the teacher allows himself to feel dismay at.
Dorothy was careful, in. this first lesson without
voice, not to calculate the answers in. her own head before
Elke gave them. The telepathy-principle had fixed
itself in Dorothy's mind, through her reading, as the
chief armament used by the enemies of animal-intelligence.


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Conville,
On 3 October last I sent you, on the advice of
Miss Jane Edgeworth at the British Council, the above
Black play, enclosing a copy of a letter from Peter
Hall which I thought might interest you.
I am just checking that the script and enclosures
arrived, aswwe are finding recently that sometimes
things don't get there.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Wy 2 Uudid Ceko der
2 O
Wmg!
CREN!
Dai Cele spe he. dovy
YES
hte fe poodlr
WL did
Nigta awens kar:
17E
andoss kaha:
Xiclt
4. Ci
Cauido rstkup else
Dos kuew whal VA cil
V ului
1 bo 3 ) ELP
crupel Ele pocils
U Mali


Eddie Kulukundi
kisprmig
CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Kulukundis,
I have been discussing the above Black script
with the British Council in connection with the
British entry for the Lagos Festival, and a sub-
sequent African tour.
Dn the suggestion of the Head of Drama there
we also sent it in September to the National Theatre,
and I thought you might be interested to see copies
of the letters from Peter Hall and Lord Birkett,
explaining their unenviable situation.
Today I happened to be talking to Denys Becher
about an American Black actor of his for the title
role, and it was he who suggested you might well be
interested in seeing this play.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Chardet,
I think I overlooked to send you copies of
the letters from Peter Hall and Lord Birkett with
the above script.
I enclose them now:
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Stephen,
In view of the money-shortage, and on the
advice again of the British Councii, we sent the
above play to the National Theatre, and I wondered
if you would be interested in seeing two of their
letters.
They can't afford it either.
I think the idea of a tour starting from your
theatre is still valid and interesting.
It would
be easy enough to call up money, or at least poss-
ible, if a white star could be involved. This
is always the dilemma I have to face in the end.
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Witt,
I have been discussing the above Black script
with the British Council in connection with the
British entry for the Lagos Festival, and a sub-
sequent African bour.
On their suggestion we sent it in September to
the National Theatre, and I'm sure neither Peter Hall
nor Lord Birkett would mind me sending you photostats
of their letters, to give you an idea of the kind of
play it is.
It has to be a powerful atmospheric evening,
with the drums and the Voodoo ritual getting inside
people. Morgan Fisheroof the Mott the Hoople group
has composed for me a powerful electronic sound
backup for the show.
I happened to be talking to Denys Becher this
evening about an American Black actor of his for
the title role, and it was he who suggested you L
might be interésted to see a copy.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Loewenstein,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black
script with the British Council in connection
with the Lagos Festival, should it come off, and
a subsequent African tour. Jane Edgeworth there
suggested you might be interested in seeing a copy
for the Roundhouse.
We tried the National Theatre recently and I'm
sure neither Peter Hall nor Lord Birkett would
mind me sending you copies of their letters to give
you a preliminary idea of the play.
Ifs spectacular nature puts it beyond the means
of our own company here but if the venue was right,
and maybe a white star could be included, I think
my partner, a money-broker experienced in theatre-
investment, would call in other investors.
The Mott the Hoople group are composing a
rather extraordinary electronic score which could
supplement the two drums onstage, and generate the
right excitement. My Black friends are always
complaining that a serious striaght-on history of
their race is never given---this is why I'm resitt-
ing turning this into a musical, which it could
easily be.
In Germany I found, after long searching, a
Black American actor capable of playing the lead.
Nobody in this country could (wild statement I'm
prepared to wager on).
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


knightsbridge
THEATRICAL PRODUCTIONS LIMITED
11 Goodwin's Court, London WC2 N411 01 836 7517/8
11 December 1975
Maurice Rowdon Esq
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth St
LONDON SW6
Dear Mr Rowdon
RE: CHRISTOPHE
Thank you very much for sending us the
above script, but I fear it is not really
one for us.
I think possibly this is something that
would be far better mounted in the States
as I think there are many more black actors
who have the experience for this type of
production; I may be wrong.
I wish you every success with the project.
Yours sincerely
heelloms
- EDDIE KULUKUNDIS
Enc.
Registration:-
London 965 597
Registered Office:-
Directors: Eddie Kulukundis, Jack Lynn
34 London South W1Y2BP Molton St.


PO Box 4QX
EMI
30-31 Golden Square
Film & Theatre Corporation
London W1A 40X
Limited
Telephone : 01-437 9234
Telegrams
Britcin London W1
Directors Bernard Delfont Chairn man& Chief Executive)
David 8 C
DAKT A.
EA Maxv eitheed w
Office of the
E E
Chairman & Chief Executive - Sir Bernard Delfont
PWLAH Adair F.C.I.S.
Maurice Rowdon, Esq.,
11th November, 1975.
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street,
London SW6 ILB
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
'Christophe'
Thank you for your letter of the 4th November
with reference to the above, but after
careful consideration we feel that the subject
matter is something which we cannot interest
ourselves in, so do hope you understand.
Do you wish us to post the script to you
or would you prefer to collect it from this
office. Perhaps you would give my secretary
a ring and let her know.
Yours sincerely,
EMI
A member of the EMI Group of companies
International leadersi in music, electronics and leisure
Registered Registered office:. in England 30-3 31 No: Golden 212588 Square. London WIA 4QX


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Loewenstein,
I have been discussing the enclosed Black
script with the British Council in connection
with the Lagos Festival, should it come off, and
a subsequent African tour. Jane Edgeworth
suggested you might be interested in seeing a
copy for the Roundhouse.
We tried the National Theatre recently and
I'm sure neither Peter Hall nor Lord Birkett
would mind me seding you copies of their letters
to give you a preliminary idea of the play.
Its spectacular nature puts it beyond the
means of our own company here but if the venue
was right, and maybe a white star could be in-
cluded, I think my partner, a money-broker with
experience of theatre-investment, would call in
other investors.
The Mott the Hoople group are composing a
rather extraordinary electronic score which could
supplement the drums onstage and generate the
right excitement.
In Germany I found, after long searching,
a Black American actor capable of playing the
lead.
He should be getting an Equity card here
sooni a
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


THEATRE BOARD ADS
Dear Ann,
I wonder if it would be possible for you to
insert - the following ad in the Theatre Board as
soon as possible:
Guitarist-composer, dedicated, non-commercial,
with classical and jazz experience (and Equity
card) required for hew theatre production.
Contact (mornings) 01.385.1003.
With thanks and best wishes
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


Chairman
Sir Max Rayne
Addressi
The Archway
Director
Peter Hall
Rigistured Orce 10a. Aquinas Street
The National Theatre
Deputy Director
Michael Birkett
London SE18AE
General Administrator Peter Stevens
Telephone
Cabies/Telegrams ThenatLondon SE1
Registeredin Lordon
Maurice Rowdon Esq
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
LONDON SW6 1LB
1st September 1975
Dear Mr Rowdon
I have now had a chance. to examine your text of CHRISTOPHE,
which I found fascinating.
I think the play ringsiofr truth and-that the characters are
drawn with clarity andcompassion. The story line is strong
and important, and'thepart of 'Christophe' would provide a
black actor with an opportunity for a great tour-de-force
performance. The. background is colourful, exciting and
extravagant.
However, having. said that, I don't think that at the moment
it is one for u's. In our current state of flux we do not
have the flexibility which would be required to enable us to
incorporate this particular piece into our repertoire.
However it was very good of you to let me see your script,
and I am returning it herewith for safe keeping. I wish you
every success with it.
Best wishes
Yours sincerely
leler Hall
PETER HALL


Vienna.
Dear Miss Edgeworth,
We've been invited by the Venetian Biennale to
submit a programme for their theatre side this year,
and I wonder if we could discuss the possibility of
your making a contribution towards the production
costs. I shall see that the scripts are two- or
three-handers and will not be costiy. May I_get
in touch with you after Easter on this, when I'm
back in England?
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Portslade
Productions
Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 ILB Tel: 01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
SGT. PEPPER
Dear Mr Grabowski,
I enclose a letter I wrote today to Bob Swash
Ltd here in London, after our negotiations for the
rights of this musical. Could you forward a letter
to us in which you ask us to negotiate on your behalf
for the purchase of these rights, for our files? We're
glad to have been of assistance to you.
Ronnie tells me that we may be meeting you at
Bochum over Easter to discuss our other projects and
to see your new show, and we are very much looking
forward to this.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


MA W ELLIS WARNE & CO
L.J.BENTLEY A.G.WARNE PPPARKER P.L.CROSSE A.N.HUNT 1.W.M.JOHN J.W.EVES
LA.GARROD PM.GREGSON
CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS
4 GRAYS INN SQUARE GRAYS INN LONDON WCIR 5AU
TELEPHONE: 01-242 9593
TELEGRAMS: : SUBSALT. LONDON w I
TELEX:267687
YOUR REF. G:ab
OUR REF. 1486B/AGW/AA
19th February, 1975
Mark Gibbs, Esq.,
Messrs. Harbottle & Lewis,
34, South Molton Street,
London,
W1Y 2BP.
Dear Mr. Gibbs,
Maurice Rowdon
Thank you for your letter of 17th February.
We have rather lost touch with Mr. Rowdon and I
shall be grateful if you can give me a current
address to which I could write. Meanwhile, I can
say that we have seen. no financial records of
Portslade Productions Limited. The only matter
with which we have been concerned in that connection
is the registration of the company for V.A.T.
purposes.
Yours sincerely,
Auf
Arthur G. Warne.


Dear T-Bone,
I'm sorry you felt you didn't want your plays
read by others than Maurice Rowdon. He feels. that
by passing plays on to myself and his other partners
they can be assessed in a way that a White man would
not always be able to. I don't think your approach
is professional and it causes a lot of unnecssary
nuisance, when the only question for us---and it
should be the same for you---is getting the stuff on
the stage.
All the best to you,
Ronnie Lee


Dear Mike Ockrent,
I believe Brendan Donnison spoke to you about the
possibility of slots for us at the Traverse, and you
suggested I should write to you. I am doing a Black
Double Bill (that is, negro) with Michael Rudman at
Hampstead---a couple of American plays, two handers--
is he likes my choice of the second. I would suggest
bringing up to you a mixed bill (I mean Black and White),
one of these two-handers together with a three-hander
of mine called TICK TICK which is where Brendan Donnison
comes in. I have a full-length three-hander called
ESKIMO TRANCE which has had two productions and I
would like to re-cast, which could perhaps be run in
the same slot or later.
What I would ideally like
would be an arrangement with you whereby the company
I am forming, called THE FIVE PAST TWELVE COMPANY,
producing 'crisis' plays of a certain type, could get
a showing rather than one or two plays as such.
imagine we couldn 't lean on you for more than running
costs or guarantee.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 ILB Tel: 01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
Herrn Vincenz Grabowski
Schweizer Tournée-Theater
BASEL
Malzgasse 8
Sehr gahrter Herr Grabowski,
Seit ich Deutschland und Ihre "Hair" produktion verlassen haàde
habe ich hier in England mit grossem Erfolg in verschiedenen Theater-
sticken gearbeitet. Neuerdings bin ich Co-Director in Portslade
Productions Ltd., einem Theaterunternehmen, welches sich auf 2 bis 4
Personensticke spezialisiert. Wir planen Tournéen in Deutschland,
Holland, Belgien, Frankreich, etc.
Ich erzahlte meinen beiden Partnern, Mr. Maurice Rowdon(der Be-
sitzer der Firma) und Miss June Baden-Semper aber unsere Zusammenarbeit,
und insbesondere iber Ihre grossangelegten Arbeitsmetpoden in Bereiche
des erfolgreichen Tournéetheaterunternehmens, welche meine Partner
sehr beeindruckten.
Wir wirden gerne unsere erste Kontinentale Produktion in der
Schweiz erdffnen, wir dachten dabei sechs gr8ssere schweizer Stadte zu
bespielen. Unsere Sticke sind alle in englischer Sprache, alles neue
Sticke - kurz erstklassiges Theater:
Mr. Rowdon ist ein bekannter Buhnenautor("Mahler" "Eskimo Trance")
und Schriftsteller; er schrieb unter anderen Sticke die allerhochstens
2 bis 4 personen arfordern. und welche Mindestanforderungen an Broduk-
tionsaufwand béndtigen (Koettime, Requisiten; Buhnenbild, etc.)
Da Sie und Ihr Bruder niynuirklich das grdsste Tournfetheaterunter-
nehmen in Europa sind, d.h. sie konnen die bestmoglichsten arbeitsbe-
dingungen bieten, wirden wir gerne mit Ihnen zusammenarbeitan: Somit
konnten Sie mit englischsprachingem Theater einer immer gr8sser werd-
enden Nachfrage auf den Kontinent Rechnung tragen.
Die Sticke wie ich schon anfthrte sind alle samt kleinere Produk-
tionen fir die Tournéen. Der Name des bestehenden Schauspielerensembles
ist "THE FIVE PAST TWELVE COMPANY"(in Deutsch etwa: "Das Finf Nach
Zw8lf Ensemble") Wir spielen auch Sticke von Autoren mit schwarzer
Hautfarbe.
Ich wirde Sie gerne aafang Marz entweder in Basel oder in Pisa
(Icalien)treffen, WO Mr. Rowdon's Schwiegervater au Hause ist, Viel-
leicht kennen Sie Ihn, Herrn Gottfried Bermann-Fischer von' - Fischer
Verlag? Wir kônnen Sie dort als Gast herzlich empfangen um unsere
Arbeitsmoglichkeiten zu errortern. Natûrlkch kônnen Sie auch bei Herrn
Rowdon in London zu Gast sein. Es gibt noch andere interessante Bro-
jeckte, die wir am besten mtindlich errirten sollten.
Ich freue mich auf ein baldigen Wiedersehen.
herzliche Grisse
Ihr
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2 Ronnie Lee Williams
Registered as Theatrical Employers


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 1LB Tel:*01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
P.S. Ich wûrde Sie gerne telephonisch erreichen um ein
baldm@gliches Zusammentreffen festzulegen. Ab den 6 Marz
b bin Ich in Italien.
Bitte senden Sie mir Ihre neue Telephonnnummer an die
Portsladeproduckion. (Briefkopf) Laut Auskunftsermittlungen
sind sie im Telephonguch nicht angefahrt, und somit von
London nicht erreichbar!!!?
Vielen Dank
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


Harbottle & Lewis
34 South Molton Street
Solicitors
London W1Y 2BP
Telephone: 01. 629 7633
G. Laurence Harbottle
Cables: Harlex London W1
J.B. Stutter
Telex: 22233
R.S. Aikin
James C.G. Crichton
Alan J. Patten
Our reference G:ab
H.J. Beach
Your reference
Mark P. Gibbs
R. W. Lee
F. L. Caldwell
Maurice Rowdon Esq. 9
5 Tamworth Street,
London, S.W6.
21st February, 1975.
Dear Maurice,
I enclose a copy of the letter I have received from Arthur Warne.
Clearly you now need to write to him and give instructions for him to
proceed with the preparation of accounts, for which he will need all
the financial details and records that you have.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Gibbs


Dear Mr tarne,
Hark Gibbs of Harbottle and Lewis has been in
touch with me. I am preparing the financial details
and records of our MAHLER production which has been
the company's only activity so far, and I wonder if
you would be good enough to prepare the accounts on
the basis of these when you receive them.
YOUus sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Dear Miss Edgeworth,
It was a pleasure meeting you the other day, and
I enclose a copy of the Black play we talked about
called CHRISTOPHE. It will be as multi-medial a prod-
uction as the money available allows.
As far as this company is concerned, CHRISTOPHE
will be in the context of a number of other Black prod-
uctions under the banner of a live company we are form-
ing now called THE FIVE PAST TWELVE COMPANY. This is
designed for the production of small-cast plays by both
Black and White authors, with actors doubling up in a
complete repertoire of three or four evenings. All
the plays will be 'human crisis' plays, as the title
of the company denotes. Our first Black prduction
will be a double bill of two-handers in association
with Michael Rudman at the Hampstead Theatre Club, and
later a full-length play at the ICA. Slots are being
offered us at the Traverse and at the Studio theatre
in Sheffield.
One of our principal aims is to tour our productions
on the Continent, and for this purpose we shall next
week be meeting a number of touring managers on that
side.
We would greatly appreciate suggestions of any kind,
and help in finding smaller venues in Belgium, France
and Holland, which the FIVE PAST TWELVE COMPANY could
tour. One of our directors worked. with Germany's bigg-
est touring managers for some years, so we are OK in
that area.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
Edinburgh International Festival
Edinburgh Festival Society Limited
29 StJames's Street London SWIA IHA telephone 01-839 2611 telegrams Edfest London SWI
Chairman The Rt Hon Jack Kane OBE Lord Provost of Edinburgh
Festival Director Peter Diamand CBE LLD
WT/ADP/F
19th February 1975
Maurice Rowdon Esq
Ports lade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
London SW6 1LB
Dear Mr. Rowdon
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your play
"Christophe", which we are now returning to you. We enjoyed
it very much.
Plans for the Festival however are now well advanced, and it
is not possible to add to our arrangements" at this stage.
For your information, last year we read another play about
"Christophe" which covered very similar ground. It was sub-
sequently 'produced by a regional theatre in the USA, with
Clayton Corbin in the lead.
I hope thàt you too will be successful in your efforts to have
your play produced.
With all good wishes
Yours sincerely
Bll h.n
William Thomley
artistic assistant
Registeredin Edinburgh 24766 - Registered Office 21 Market Street Edinburgh EH1 1BW
Thel Edinburgh Festival is al member of the European Association of Music Festivals Geneva


Dear Dick Mayo,
This is just to say that I'll be at the following
address from March 1 to March 4/5, but anything you
want to say. if I don't happen to be there will be
conveyed to me at home:
Casa Fischer
Pieve di Camaiore
Tel:
From March 4/5 I shall be at home:
Casa Campardi
San Gimignano
(Siena)
I shall only be in Italy until March 15th, then
back here. So I look forward to meeting you, probably
in Rome. The most experienced film entrepreneur I
know always tells me, 'If you want to lose a friend
ask him to
money into a film'. With that caution
hontoput
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


Miss Mandy Lowis
Community Relations Commission
15/16 Bedford Street
LONDON
WC2E 9HX
Dear Miss Lewis,
Thhnk you for your letter of the 30th Januarya
I feel that to appooach you for the financing of :
a large-cast show like CHRISTOPHE, however educational :
its çontent, would not: be quite realistic.
I would be
glad to know your suggestions on this---as to whether,
for instance, you could offer some guarantee against
loss at the box office.
We are in process of forning a live company
called THE FIVE PAST TWEL VE COMPANY which I do think
comes much more into your field of activities, since
it involves small-cast plays and modest venues. Our
first production will be a Black Double Bill at the
Hampstead Theatre Club which we are planning with
Michael Rudman, involving a cast of only four people.
We are also in negotiation with the Traverse in Edin-
burgh, The Studio at Sheffield and The Other Place
at Stratford for touring thiso Together with the
ICA we shall be setting up a full-length play for
their Black Festival in June, towards which they will
be giving us £250. We would appreciate the possibil-
ity of getting these productions off the ground with
the help of a grant from you. We estimate that we
shall need at least two thousand pounds.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


DR JAN DeBLIECK
OOSTDUINLAAN 68
THE HAGUE
HOLLAND


Community Relations Commission
15/16 BEDFORD STREET LONDON WC2E 9HX
30 January 1975
Mr Maurice Rowdon
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
London SW6 ILB
Dear Mr Rowdon
I have just discovered your letter of 1 November during an attempt to clear
my desk, and must apologise that this has never been answered.
I would be interested to know if you are still planning the production of
"Christophe" with the Dark & Light Theatre, or if the recent changes at the
Theatre have held this up.
Yours sincerely
Mandpfauris
MANDY LEWIS - Grants Officer
ML/bg


Chairman
SirN Max Rayne
Director
PeterHall
Address
The Archway
Deputy Director Michael Birkett
10a Aquinas Street
General Administrator Peter Stevens
London SE1 8AE
Telephone
Cables/Telegrams Thenat London SE1
Thel National Theatre
Maurice Rowdon Esq.,
6 February 1975
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5, Tamworth Street,
London SW6 1LB
Dear Maurice,
Thanks for sending the informal memorandum about
The Black Festival.
You certainly are thinking
big.
There are a number of points I would like
to discuss with you, which I'd rather do face to
face than through a letter.
Perhaps you would
give me a ring and we could meet again.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Noboal
fudeav
MICHAEL KUSTOW
Associate Director
(Projects/Visitors)


imps
IMPERIAL GROUP LIMITED
Imperial House 1Grosvenor Place London SW1X7HB
Telephone 01-2357010 Telex 263732 Telegrams Impsgroup London SW1
Group Public Affairs Department
21st January, 1975.
Maurice Rowdon Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street,
London SW6 1LB.
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
I refer to your letter of 16th January. I have
spoken to our Tobacco Division, who would be
the only people likely to be interested in
promoting the two events which you mentioned to
Unfortunately, they have now told me that they
would not be able to help in promoting either
of these events and I regret that there seems to
be little value in a meeting.
Yours sincerely,
lhela
G. W. McKelvie
Manager
Incorporated in England No7 72114 registered office as above


Dear Michael,
Here are two copies of the informal memorandum
we talked about. My two Black partners are June
Baden-Semper (West Indies) and Ronald L. Williams
(USA). In association with us, and sitting in on
some of our meetings, is Mrs Jocelyn Barrow-Downer
OBE (West Indies), whom I mention at the end of the
memo.
I say in the memo that the Dark and Light Theatre
will soon be known as The Black Theatre of Brixton---
this is jumping it-we have to be careful of Charity
Commission hassles here. Things down there are in
a state of necessary embryonic disarray but as long
as the members of the Board don't go mad simultaneously
it will be allright in the endo
In the memo we mention a few people as 'advisers'.
These are people we know would help us, but they are
not aware of this project and we feel as few people as
possible should be at the moment.
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


S.A.S. La Princesse Grace
Monaco
Your Serene Highness,
We are setting up a big-cast Black play of mine
called CHRISTOPHE IS KING, set in modern Haiti and
presenting the history of King Henri Christophe and
his extraordinary Court at the time of George 111.
For some time we have been toying with the
attractive idea of premiering it in Monte Carlo.
I myself have just finished a book on Diaghilev
and know of his efforts to make your city a centre
of the arts.
Iam writing to ask you whether we could
have your patronage and help in this, and also
perhaps later (in the summer of 1976) in a Black
Theatre Festival which we and the National Theatre
here are about to prepare, the first of its kind
in Europe, to take place on the newly built South
Bank site next to the Festival Hall.
With deepest respects,
Maurice Rowdon


Dear Nicholas,
I wonder if we could fix up a meeting very soon
together with John Underwood and Mark Gibbs of Har-
bottle and Lewis the theatrical lawyers. As
Portslade Productions enters various commitments
Mark is worried about our constitution, which he
describes as one of the most remarkable documents
he has ever seen. There are so many things to be
cleared up, not least among them the clauses about my
copyright. We are having a separate conference with
my agents the IFA next week.
I am setting up the Black play of mine I gave
you after MAHLER, and working closely with two Black
associates whom I would like to draw into the company.
You may feel you want to withdraw from the whole thing
and if you do this is your chance but it would be so
sad now that we are getting going, and you are such a
good person to have. We are also setting up, under
the Portslade banner, a couple of Black plays (not
mine) at the Hampstead Theatre Club.
And the National
theatre has asked me to prepare an international Black
festival to celebrate the opening of their new site
on the South Bank in 1976. I would like you to keep
mum about this last for the time being, as I fear
Black politics starting before we are ready for them.
Mark Gibbs and I are on the Board of the country's
only black theatre, the Dark and Light Theatre, which
I am anxious to revitalise.
I have been discussing
its future with the major subsidised theatres, and
Portslade generally comes into it somewhere. So we
do need to sit down and thrash out a new constitution
that copes with the new members in some way (not nec-
essarily giving them equal status), and defines your
part clearly.
Please do give me a call on this, it is most
urgent.
Yours ever,


Miss Ann Garneau
Cult tural Section
Canada House
Trafalgar Square
London
SW 1
Dear Ann Garneau,
This is just to thank you for your interest in
our Black show CHRISTOPHE IS KING.
I did write to
David Mirvish. And I shall keep you informed of
any developments.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


BLACK DOUBLE BILL
Dear Michael,
I agree we should have a couple of Shannon plays,
if only because T-Bone Wilson hasn't responded to my
enquiry about his play, or rather Oscar Abrams hasn't
on his behalf. I'm not anxious to get into W. Indian
politics---but it's a pity for Wilson, who possibly
doesn't even know about the enquiry.
Oscar Loewenstein told me he had a pile of Shannon
plays which Donald Howarth had given him and which he
thought the Court wouldn't want to produce. I shàll
have to write to Donald to get hold of these, and will
do that, and then get in touch with you again.
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


SALUMY
3gshif
0 use tne
POSTCARD 1
THE ADDRESS TO BE WRITTEN ON THIS SIDE
Maurice Rowdon, Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworbh Street,
London SW6


Oxford Playhouse Company
12 BEAUMONT STREET
OXFORD, OXI 2LW
The Oxford Playhouse Company f
ackoowledges
receipt of your script: a,
CHRISTOPHEE


MIKE SPARRON (patuces apreserts Brnkthough
KKO RAdio Lonin
A5 DI 40
homs
GLORIATAYLOR
13Duke sfo Stdamess
Snl
Kottubaill knos My NS Une


Dear Robin,
It looks as if this company is going to
rationalise itself and my lawyer Harbottle and
Lewis are getting together with Nicholas Kimber's
lawyer towwook out a new constitution.
The
original one says I must forfeit my author's
royalty, and this made it impossible to ask you
to represdnt me in the theatre. Effectively
the copyright was not'for me to play with.
The British Council who would like to see
my CHRISTOPHE touring Africa have been doing a
lot to get it on with one of the big companies.
I enclose a couple of letters, from Peter Hall
and Lord Birkett, about the script. I have
it with Trevor Nunn at the momént. I thought
I would keep you in touch with all this in case
I suddenly have to ask you to make a contract.
And any new ideas you have would be useful.
Yours ever,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Jane,
I did send a copy to Trevor Nunn at RSC,
together with photostats of the letters from
Peter Hall and Birkett.
Have you a way of
breathing down his neck gently so that it
tickles but doesn't get under his skin?
See you soon!
Yours ever,
Maurice Rowdon


Harbottle & Lewis
34 South Molton Street
Solicitors
London WIY 2BP
Telephone: 01.629 7633
G.Laurence Harbottle
Cables: Harlex London WI
J.B. Stutter
Telex: 22233
R.S. Aikin
James C.G. Crichton
Our reference G:mb
Alan J. Patten
H. J. Beach
Your reference
Mark P. Gibbs
R.W. Lee
F.L.Caldwell
M.H. D. Bowler
J Underwood Esq
R. A.Storer
Messrs Winckworth and Pemberton
41-43 Great Peter Street
20th November 1975
London SWIP 3LH
Dear Mr. Underwood,
Re: Maurice Rowdon
Further to our telephone conversation this afternoon, I am
committing my thoughts immediately to paper, as at last we seem to be
getting somewhere.
We agreed, did we not, that the old contracts really have to be
disregarded, for no-one could suggest that Maurice Rowdon was inextricably
bound in his activities as a writer to Portslade, any more than one could
suggest that your client could only invest in that company.
Portsladé exists, a loss exists within it, and there may be circ-
umstances in which our respective clients may be able to agree on plans
for using the company, and hopefully the loss. The equality of shareholding
and representation on the Board should presumably therefore be maintained.
Maurice Rowdon would say that if he wrote a new play, he would, unless
he were writing it on a commission for any third party, show it first to
Portslade as a potential production company. That would mean that he and
your client would have to sit down with the play and decide within a
specified number of weeks, whether or not they could agree a plan for a:
Portslade production for the play. Part of that agreement would be the
terms upon which Portslade would acquire the rights from Mr. Rowdon as a
writer, including terms for payment of royalties to him. Likewise, it wouldi I
be necessary to decide the terms upon which your client would be prepared to
invest money in the production fund. If agreement on all these points was
reached, Portslade would have for itself an activity. If agreement is not
reached, then obviously. Mr. Rowdon's agents will try and find a market for
his work elsewhere.
If all this is agreed in principle, then surely a simple exchange of
letters could clarify the situation once and for all.
I should be most grateful for a reply as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Gibbs


Oalsou
Min Janey
Pance
Drame
Ans
Anoculiai
Cnerte Londm
Tavistock Place
London
CHRISTOPHE
Dear Miss Watson,
I wonder if you would consider making a special
grant for the production of a largely black play of
mine dealing with the 'emperor of Haiti' Christophe.
I am preparing this production with the Dark and Light
Theatre (Frank Cousins), who will be responsible for
casting and presenting the play. The cast is very
large by present standards: together with the 'voodoo
group' and drummers, it will amount to twanty or
thirty. The expense will be very great, even if we
launch it in the most modest manner. Our aim is
to bring black theatre in England to the notice of
theatre-going people in London by taking it to a
recognised venue like the Mermaid or Greenwich.
At present the Dark and Light Theatre, hardly able
to hold itself together, is touring small halls: I
was present at one of their performances at West
Norbury last week and heard people express surprise
at the professional level. There should of course
be no surprise, and that theatre should take its
place side by side with the other inner fringe theatres.
The Dark and Light Theatre at present receives no
subsidy from the Arts Council, only a guarantee of
£2500 on each production, and two productions are
allowed each year. Frank Cousins and I think that
Christophe, with its spriniling of white characters,
and its presentation of black history in a contemp-
orary Haitian context, would be an excellent medium
for the first stop in the right direction. I dis-
cussed this at an early stage last year with Sam
Wanamaker, and it was indeed he who jsuggested that
I contactethe Dark and Light Theatre.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


RE: RONALD WILLIAMS, ACTOR
Dear Miss Arnold,
I believe Mr Ronald Williams's permission to
remain in this country is exptring at the end of
this month.
The above company is planning a stage product-
ion of a spectacular black play called CHRISTOPHE,
and I um very much hoping that Williams will be
taking the lead in this. We have been looking for
an actor to play this exacting role for something
like four years, and we feel we have now found the
right man. This does not mean that there are not,
among the five hundred black actors in London hold-
ing Equity cards, one or two who could manage the
part adequately. It simply means that only Mr
Williams seems to us---from the point of view of
his remarkable technique and personality on stage,
and not least for his ability to get on with
English people at all levels---the perfect man
for that particular role.
Our difficulty is that a theatrical production
company does not usually trade between productions.
Money comes in from investors only at the start of
a production, and it would indeed be illegal to
start trading when incapable of doing so.
Our wish is to have Mr Williams here for daily
talks and consultations and research until the
production is mounted, which should be in between
one and three months' time. We would then pay
him retrospectively for this period. He has I
believe funds of his own and can survive this period
very adequately. His residence in this country is
a choice and not a necessity: it is the choice
between earning something like ten percent of what
he could earn in Germany and has indeed earned there
for some years past. My problem is how to fill in
the form APPLICATION TO ÉMPLOY AN OVERSEAS WORKER
without stipulating. salary etc.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 1LB Tel: 01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
BLACK THEATRE
Dear Michael Kustow,
Thank you for being so positive and helpful in the
matter of the Dark and Light Theatre which we discussed
last week.
This letter is about the Festival project you ment-
ioned to me---I began to realise only when walking away
what exactly this could mean, and last night I got to-
gether with my two associates for Black Theatre and we
explored possibilities that would make of such a project
one of the most remarkable things that has happened to
the black artistic world in a white country.
White as it is, I don't think this country is in a
position to finance such a project on the high profess-
ional (and international) level it has to be. To my
mind it nust be underwritten from other sources than
state-subsidy ones, and in such a way that if at the
last moment the new National Theatre was not ready the
project could survive.
Underuriting it would not, I
think, be difficult. May I prepare you an informal
memorandum outlining not only the nature of the festival
as we see it, but the nature of the financing?
I am sure you agree that two kinds of politics have
to be avoided---violent racialism in the actual festival
presentations, and the internal kind of politics that
bedevils black acting in this country. One black
festival has already foundered here through not being
master-minded from the beginning, but left to a committ-
ce which broke up into jealous factions. Thenkfully
for my own activities, my two associates, both of them
black, are devoted to Black Theatre because they're
devoted to theatre.
We feel a festival on this scale should be
associated with a major black charity.
For myself, quite apart from all this, I am anxious
to get across the idea that the black contribution is an
urgent need for US--for our thought, our habits, not to
say our theatre. I really and truly believe that we
need them rather more than they need us, at this point.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


BLACK THEATRE
Dear Michael Kustow,
Thank you for boing a0 positive and helpful in the
matter of the Dark and Light Theatre which wo discussed
last week,
This letter is about the Féstival project you mont-
ioned to mo--I began to realiso only whon walking avay
what exactly this could mean, and last night I got to-
gethèr with my two associates for Black Theatre and we
explored possibilities that vould make of such a project
one of the most remarkable things that has happened to
the black artistic world in a white country.
White as it is, I don't think this country ie in a
position to financo such a project on the high profess-
ional (and international) level it has to be. To my
mind it must be underwritten from other sources than
state-subsidy oncs, and in such a vay that if at tho
last moment the new National Theatre was not ready the
project could survive. Undersriting it would not, I
think, be difficult. May I prepare you an informal
memorandum outlining not only the nature of the festival
as we soe it, but the nature of the financing?
I am sure you agree that two kinds of politics have
to be avoided--violent racialism in the actual festival
prosontations, and the intornal kind of politics that
bedovils black acting in thie country. One black
festival has already foundered hore through not being
mastér-minded from the beginning, but left to a committ-
ee which broke up into jealous factions. Thankfully
for my own activities, my two associates, both of thom
black, aro devoted to Black Theatre because they're
dovoted to theatre.
Wo feol a fostival on this scale should be
associated with a major black charity.
For myself, quito apart from all thio, I am anxious
to get across the idea that the black contribution is an
urgent need for US--for our thought, our habits, not to
say our theatre. I really and truly believo that wè
need thom rather more than they need us, at this point.
Yours sinceroly,
Maurice Rowdon


THE DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
Dear Mr Brierley,
I am on the new board of the Dark and Light
Theatre, London's main permanent black company,
and we are very much concerned with giving the
company a completely néw orientation. It was
my suggestion that we try and interest the major
subsidised theatres in taking productions from
the newly constituted Black Theatre, while re-
hearsals would continue to take place at our
Brixton headquarters, so that more than one
group could be in production at the same time.
You may be aware that there are about a thousand
black actors and actresses in London, five hun-
dred of them holding Equity cards. I am in
discussion at the moment with the National Theatre,
who want to cooperate as much as possible, and
I wonder if you and I could meet, to the same
end.
Yours sincerely,
Naurice Rowdon


THE DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
Dear Mr Rudman,
I am on the new board of the Dark and Light
Theatre, London's main permanent black company,
and we are very much concerned with giving the
company a completely new look. It was my sugg-
estion that we try and interest the major theatres
in taking productions from the newly constituted
Black Theatre, while rehéarsals would continue
to take place at our Brixton headquaréers, so that
more than one group could be in production at the
same time. I am in discussion with the National
and the RSC, who want to cooperate as much as
possible, and I. wonder if you and I could meet,
to the same end.
Yours sincreely,
Maurice Rowdon


ype Kn Jeld -
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kids to come. But don't think I'm
disapproving---I mean of the war destiny.
(Giving her a clear look) Theonly thing
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gees en tomake nen ieh.
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ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Trevor Nunn Artistic Director and Chief Executive
Direction
A a e Peggy Ashcroft Peter Brook Trevor Nunn
E PE
Consultant
Hall
RSC
Directors Peter Daubeny Peter
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon Warwickshire CV37 6BB
Incorporated under Royal Charter Patron Her Majesty the Queen
President The Earl of Harewood
Telephone: Stratford-upon-Avon (0789) 3693
Chairman Sir George Farmer Vice-Chairman Dennis L Flower
Box Office Telephone: Stratford-upon-Avon (0789) 2271
Aldwych Theatre
London WC2B 4DF
Telephone: (01) 836 1446
Box Office Telephone: (01) 836 6404
Please reply to Stratford address
Maurice Rowdon, Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street,
London, SW6 1LB
3rd December, 1974.
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
Many thanks for your letter dated 25th November.
I shall be very happy to meet you, and I will ask my secretary to
give you a ring to fix a time and place.
Youns sincerely,
hui
Srealn
DAVID BRIERLEY
General Manager.


THE DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
Dear Corinne Rodriguez,
The new board of the Dark and Light Theatre,
of which I am a member, is very much concerned
with giving the company a completely new look.
It is my plan to try and interest the major sub-
sidised theatres in London in taking productions
from the newly constituted black theatre, while
rehearsals and some previews would continue to
take place at our Brixton headquarters. You
may be aware that there are about a thousand
black actors and actresses in London, five
hundred of them holding Equity cards. I wonder
if you and I could meet, to start the discussion
off.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 ILB Tel: 01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
THE DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
Dear Clive Tempest,
As a mémber of the Board of the Dark and Light
Theatre I want to kéep you informed of what---with
the mandate of the Board---I am doing to give the
theatre a new look. My efforts are designed to
parallel those of Norman Beaton, with whom I am in
close touch all the time. I am getting discussions
going with the major subsidised theatres in the
hope that they will leave slots open for black prod-
uctions which can be rehearsed at our Brixton head-
quarters before entering into their repertory and
thhus benefiting from their grants. My plan is
conceived on the basis of the hunch that little or
no ! extra money will be available from the Arts
Council next year, so that the only hope for Black
Theatre that is not privately subsidised will be
to put itself under the wing of those theatres that
are well establishéd with generous grants, and those
which are in the habit of méeting the production-
costs of an incoming company for a share of the
box office. I shall not be seeing Dhe Royal Court
as I think Donald Howarth is already well aware of
Black Theatre, and they have already done. quite a
lot for its
If thé Arts Council looked after administration
and the maintenance of the Brixton hall, and perhaps
a weèk of previews there to pull in local audiences
before productions move to the Aldwych of the Mermaid
or the National, the present guarantee of &5000,
that really presents more problems than it solves,
would begin to look a feasible sum.
Norman Beaton may not get anything like the
£40,000 he asked you for, but could I add my voice
to his, that there is an urgent need to settle the
présent déficit, which was not helped by the £1700
loss incurred on the last show? A rescue operation
would help us to get off to a good start, after the
pantomime season.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


THE DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE
Dear Clive Tompept,
As a membor of the Board of the Dark and Light
Thoatre I want to keep you informed of thatwwwith
tho mandato of tho Board-I am aoing to Cive tho
theatre a now look. Hy offorte are. dosigned to
perallol those of Nornan Beaton, tith-vhom I an in
closo.touch all the tinoe Ian. gotting aigcussions
coing wi th the major subsidised choatrod in the
hope that thoy will leave clote opèn for black prod-
uctions thich can to rohoarsed at our Brixton head-
quartore beforé entéring into : their roportory and
tabus bonefiting fron thoir grants. Hy plan is
concoivod on tho basio of tho bunch. that little or
no: oxtra monoy vill bo: available fron tho Arts
Couneil. noxt yoar, to that the only hopb. for Black
Thoatro that io not privatoly oubsidisod vill bo
to put itoolf undor the ving of those theatrée that
aro voll. oetablichod with Genorous grants, and those
which aro in the habit of neoting the production-
coets of an inconing company for a shere of the
box offico. I. chail not bo sooing Dhe Royal. Court
as I think Donald. Howarth is already dell aware of
Black Theatré, and thoy bavo already done quite a
lot for it.
If tho Arto Council lookod after administration
and the maintonando of the. Brixton hall, and porhaps
a. wook of. provicua there to pull in. looal audioncen
beforo productions move to tho Aldvych ot the Mormaid
or the National, tho prosont guerantoe of G5000,
that roally presonte moro problens than it solvos,
vould bogin to loot a. foasiblo sure
Norman Beaton nay not
anything like the
640,000 ho abkod you"for, bEct could I add.
voice
to his, that thore is 'an urgont noed to Mdccc1e the
prosont doficit, which was not holpod by the E1700
loss incurred on the last ohow? - A roscue operation
tould, help us to got off to a good start, after tho
pantonine soason.
Yours sincorely,
liaurico Roudon


RE: RON WILLIAMS, ACTOR
Dear Miss Arnold,
Further to my letter of 29th November last
about RONALD WILLIAMS, actor, here is the inform-
ation you need on him. He was born on 2 February
1942 in Oakland California, USA. His Home Office
number is 8103840. His paasport number is Z1789-
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Lewenstein,
I thought I would write about the time of your
return to England and remind you of the above script
as your pile of scripts must have risen somewhat.
I shall be in Munich for a couple of weeks and
will if I may call you on my return. My partner who
I think Iitold you is a money-broker feels that the
climate for play-investing in the City is better than
it has been for some time.
I think he would come up
with support if half the finance was already there.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Dear Mr Phillips,
Further to our phone conversation last week
about my advertisement in the Business Opportunities
column I have asked my solicitors Harbottle and
Lewis to write to you.
Would you then, if all is clear, place this
as a line advertisement in the first instance on
the earliest Tuesday or Thursday available? I
have amended the advertisement as follows:
Production company seeks investors for
musical one-man stage show for internat-
ional and US tour. Box number.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Lord Birkett
National Theatre
Upper Ground
London
SE1 9PX
CARMAGNOLA
Dear Lord Birkett,
After CHRISTOPHE I would like to try another
'big' but less expensive (and White) play cn ycu.
I think something on a Venetian subject could be
most satisfying. A few years ago I wrote a book
on Venice---both here and in the States it did
better than any other book of mine.
There seens
an opportunity for inexpensive pageantry. The
script is written in a 'simultaneous action' style,
with two and sonetimes three scenes going on at
once.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


BLACK BOBIN
Dear Mr Pierce,
I wonder if you would be kind enough to keep
the enclosed manuscript for the time being as a
copyright precaution.
Authors are today advised by the Society of
Authors to deposit their scrips with their banks
so as to ensure that there is some copyright
evidence in the casa of dispute.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


ROYMARTIN
Height: 5'10*
Eyes: Blue (2)
Hair: Various
ROY MARTIN. actor, director, musician, writer, poet, acrobat and Equity member, also rides horses,
performs car and motor-cycle stunts, and is an expert Scuba diver.
Early Training 1960 - Stuntman for Wamer Bros. Hollywood
1961 - Wall-of-death rider, Southend Amusement Park
1962-1965 - Travelled int the East with The Magic Theatre
1966-69 Robert O'Neil's Actors Studio Company
Jonothan Hammond's Northend Troupe (plays by Paul Ableman and Roger Howard at London Arts
Lab and Mercury Theatre)
Quipu Productions (David Calderisi and David Halliwell)
Rivendo Productions (Alexis Kanner) 5
La Mama
Co-Director of Wherehouse La Mama (London). Ellen Stewart's London offshoot of her New York
company. Extensive European tours and. TV appearances including:
'Hump' (in collaboration with the author, David Benedictus)
'GroupJuice' and 'Little Mother'
Title role in 'The Hilton Keen Show' to which James Mossman devoted an entire TV
programme, Review (13 Dec 1969)
'obviously a bit of a shock for some older members of the audience - imaginatively appalling
cleverly devised - * brutally funny - projected with vigour and abandon by this energetic
young company' : Guardian
Playschool (TV Director: Michael Cole)
Launched BBC TV's new series 'First Time Out' with Programme', written and performed by
the company (TV Director: Anne Head)
'Does you mother know your watching' (TV Director: Michael Cole)
Roy Martin was Founder-Director of La Mama Amsterdam, launched with 'Evol', a
rock-musical, directed by and featuring Roy Martin.
entirely effective - - The whole work is a free-flowing pastiche of contemporary
theatrical effects that succeeds in sensuously, ecstatically involving the audience and,
at the end of the performance, bringing them, to their feet. - The music and songs are
delightful and the joyous involvement of the actors in their work is miraculous in the
face of the current theater of abstraction and alienation. I - Paradiso Fox, Amsterdam
Roy Martin's departure from the London La Mama company was noted by Irving Wardle in
The Times:
'Since I last saw them the Wherehouse have lost two of their strongest members,
Roy Martin and Neil Hornick. .
Classes and workshops in Experimental Theatre at London School of Contemporary Dance
Directed 'Spiggy Topes' 'Plastic Sock' at The Place, London
Quipu Productions David Calderisi's "Intersection' at Mercury Theatre, London, and
Phoenix Theatre, Leicester,
Co-directed 'A Shakespeare Collage' for D.A.T. Company, Amsterdam
Directed La Mama Season at Pistol Theatre, Stockholm:
Leonard Melfi's "Stimulation':
Maria Irene Fornes' 'Dr. Kheal' (a one-man play directed and performed by Roy Martin)
Roy Martin's 'Five and a Half Minutes'


Roy Martin / continued. -
1972-73 Staged '22', Marsha Hunt's new Road Show
Collaborations with Neil Hornick's The Phantom Captain companv
'Watch out Monty Python. There's an outfit called The Phantom Captain coming
close behind you in the fine art of making serious fun of heavy breathing sugjects. -
The Sunday Times
Playroom Theatre season, Old Compton Street, London
'The Hidden Arthur' by the Company, DirectorJ. Skarvellis
. . .Roy Martin's fiery Merlin' - Time Out
'Animals Under Canvas' byJ. Skarvellis, Director Christy Dickason.
1 imaginative performance of Roy Martin' - Time Out
'Beautiful Lunatics' by William Dumaresque, Director Richard Howard.
'Dr. Kheal', a one-man play by Maria Irene Fornes, Director Roy Martin
'Electra' by Warren Heamden, Director Mike Samne
'the very talented Roy Martin' - Plays and Players
'Wankers' by J. Skarvellis, Director Mike Sarne
Films: 'Crossplot' (Tribune Productions, Alvin Rakoff)
"Twentynine' (Shillingford Lamb Productions, Brian Cummings)
'Connecting Rooms' (Telstar Productions, Franklyn Gollings)
'La Pied' (Avcar Productions Brussels, Patrick Hella)
ROMW EL
ALL ENQUIRIES:
Roy Fox (Artistes Management)
4 Kings Ct. Sth.
King's RoadSW3
telephone 01-352-2153,


Roy Martin / continued.
1972-73 Staged '22', Marsha Hunt's new Road Show
Collaborations with Neil Hornick's The Phantom Captain companv
'Watch out Monty Python. There's an outfit called The Phantom Captain coming
close behind you in the fine art of making serious fun of heavy breathing sugjects. -
The Sunday Times
Playroom Theatre season, Old Compton Street, London
'The Hidden Arthur' by the Company, Director J. Skarvellis
Roy Martin's fiery Merlin' - Time Out
'Animals Under Canvas' byJ. Skarvellis, Director Christy Dickason.
imaginative performance of Roy Martin' - Time Out
'Beautiful Lunatics' by William Dumaresque, Director Richard Howard.
'Dr. Kheal, a one-man play by Maria Irene Fornes, Director Roy Martin
Electra' by Warren Heamden, Director Mike Sarne
'the very talented Roy Martin' - Plays and Players
'Wankers' byJ J. Skarvellis, Director Mike Sarne
Films: 'Crossplot' (Tribune Productions, Alvin Rakoff)
"Twentynine' (Shillingford Lamb Productions, Brian Cummings)
'Connecting Rooms' (Telstar Productions, Franklyn Gollings)
'La Pied' (Avcar Productions Brussels, Patrick Hella)
Sw7
ROMW EL
ALL ENQUIRIES:
Roy Fox (Artistes Management)
4 Kings Ct. Sth.
King's Road SW3
telephone 01-352-2133,


Royl Martin / continued.
1972-73 Staged '22', Marsha Hunt's new Road Show
Collaborations with Neil Hornick's The Phantom Captain company.
'Watch out Monty Python. There's an outfit called The Phantom Captàin coming
close behind you in the fine art. of making serious fun of heavy breathing sugjects.
The Sunday Times
Playroom Theatre season, Old Compton Street, London
'The Hidden Arthur' by the Company, Director J. Skarvellis
- . .Roy Martin's fiery Merlin' Time Out
'Animals Under Canvas' byJ. Skarvellis, Director Christy Dickason.
- imaginative performance of Roy Martin' - Time Out
'Beautiful Lunatics' by William Dumaresque, Director Richard Howard.
'Dr. Kheal', a one-man play by Maria Irene Fornes, Director Roy Martin
"Electra'by Warren Heamden, Director Mike Samne
'the very talented Roy Martin' Plays and Players
'Wankers' byJ. Skarvellis, Director Mike Sarne
Films: 'Crossplot' (Tribune Productions, Alvin Rakoff)
"Twentynine' (Shillingford Lamb Productions, Brian Cummings)
'Connecting Rooms' (Telstar Productions, Franklyn Gollings)
'La Pied' (Avcar Productions Brussels, Patrick Hella)
Sw7
Romw EE
ALL ENQUIRIES:
Roy Fox (Artistes Management)
4 Kings Ct. Sth.
King's RoadSW3
telephone 01-352-2153


Royl Martin / continued.
1972-73 Staged '22', Marsha Hunt's new Road Show
Collaborations with Neil Hornick's The Phantom Captain companv
'Watch out Monty Python. There's an outfit called The Phantom Captain coming
close behind you in the fine art of making serious fun of heavy breathing sugjects. -
The Sunday Times
Playroom Theatre season, Old Compton Street, London
'The Hidden Arthur' by the Company, Director. J. Skarvellis
Roy Martin's fiery Merlin' - Time Out
'Animals Under Canvas' by). Skarvellis, Director Christy Dickason.
. imaginative performance of Roy Martin' - Time Out
'Beautiful Lunatics' by William Dumaresque, Director Richard Howard.
'Dr. Kheal', a one-man play by Maria Irene Fornés, Director Roy Martin
'Electra' by Warren Heamden, Director Mike Sarne
'the very talented Roy Martin' - Plays and Players
'Wankers' byl J. Skarvellis, Director Mike Sarne
Films: 'Crossplot' (Tribune Productions, Alvin Rakoff)
Twentynine' (Shillingford Lamb Productions, Brian Cummings)
'Connecting Rooms' (Telstar Productions, Franklyn Gollings)
'La Pied' (Avcar Productions Brussels, Patrick Hella)
Sw7
63 CROMWEL
ALL ENQUIRIES:
Roy Fox (Artistes Management)
4 Kings Ct. Sth.
King's Road SW3
telephone 01-352-2183


Roy Martin / continued.
1972-73 Staged '22', Marsha Hunt's new Road Show
Collaborations with Neil Hornick's The Phantom Captain companv
'Watch out Monty Python. There's an outfit called The Phantom Captain coming
close behind you in the fine art of making serious fun of heavy breathing sugjects, -
The Sunday Times
Playroom Theatre season, Old Compton Street, London
'The Hidden Arthur' by the Company, Director J. Skarvellis
. - Roy Martin's fiery Merlin' Time Out
'Animals Under Canvas' byJ. Skarvellis, Director Christy Dickason.
. - imaginative performance of Roy Martin' - Time Out
'Beautiful Lunatics' by William Dumaresque, Director Richard Howard.
'Dr. Kheal', a one-man play by Maria Irene Fornés, Director Roy Martin
'Electra: by Warren Heamden, Director Mike Sarne
'the very: talented Roy Martin' - Plays and Players
'Wankers' by J. Skarvellis, Director Mike Sarne
Films: 'Crossplot' (Tribune Productions, Alvin Rakoff)
Twentynine' (Shillingford Lamb Productions, Brian Cummings)
'Connecting Rooms' (Telstar Productions, Franklyn Gollings)
'La Pied' (Avcar Productions Brussels, Patrick Hella)
TEL
3 (RomW
ALL ENQUIRIES:
Roy Fox (Artistes Management)
4 Kings Ct. Sth.
King's Road SW3
telephone 01-352-2153


ROYMARTIN
Height: 5'10"
Eyes: Blue (2)
Hair: Various
ROY MARTIN. actor, director, musician, writer, poet, acrobat and Equity member, also rides horses,
performs car and motor-cycle stunts, and is an expert Scuba diver.
Early Training 1960 - Stuntman for Wamer Bros. Hollywood
1961 - Wall-of-death rider, Southend Amusement Park
1962-1965 Travelled in the East with The Magic Theatre
1966-69 Robert O'Neil's Actors Studio Company
Jonothan Hammond's Northend Troupe (plays by Paul Ableman and Roger Howard at London Arts
Lab and Mercury Theatre)
Quipu Productions (David Calderisi and David Halliwell)
Rivendo Productions (Alexis Kanner)
La Mama
Co-Director of Wherehouse La Mama (London). Ellen Stewart's London offshoot of her New York
company. Extensive European tours and TV appearances including:
'Hump' (in collaboration with the author, David Benedictus)
'Group Juice' and 'Little Mother'
Title role in 'The Hilton Keen Show' to which James Mossman devoted an entire TV
programme, Review (13 Dec1969)
'cbviously a bit of a shock for some older members of the audience . . imaginatively appalling
cleverly devised - - - brutally funny - : projected with vigour and abandon by this energetic
young company' : Guardian
Playschool (TV Director: Michael Cole)
Launched BBC TV's new series 'First Time Out' with "Programme', written and performed by
the company (TV Director: Anne Head)
'Does you mother know your watching' (TV Director: Michael Cole)
Roy Martin was Founder-Director of La Mama Amsterdam, launched with 'Evol', a
rock-musical, directed by and featuring Roy Martin.
- - entirely effective - The whole work is a free-flowing pastiche of contemporary
theatrical effects that succeeds in sensuously, ecstatically involving the audience and, :
at the end of the performance, bringing them to their feet. . The music and songs are.
delightful and the joyous involvement of the actors in their work is miraculous in the
face of the current theater of abstraction and alienation. - Paradiso Fox, Amsterdam
Roy Martin's departure from the London La Mama company was noted by Irving Wardle in
The Times:
'Since I last saw them the Wherehouse have lost two of their strongest members,
Roy Martin and Neil Homick. à
Classes and workshops in Experimental Theatre at London School of Contemporary Dance
Directed 'Spiggy Topes' 'Plastic Sock' at The Place, London
Quipu Productions David Calderisi's 'Intersection' at Mercury Theatre, London, and
Phoenix Theatre, Leicester.
Co-directed. 'A Shakespeare Collage' for D.A.T. Company, Amsterdam
Directed La Mama Season at Pistol Theatre, Stockholm:
Leonard Melfi's "Stimulation",
TAL
Maria Irene Fornes' 'Dr. Kheal' (a one-man play directed and performed by Roy Martin)
Roy Martin's 'Five and a Half Minutes'


5 Tamworth Street London SW6 ILB Tel: 01.385 4003


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 ILB Tel: 01.385 4003
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
THE' FIVE PAST TWELVE COMPANY
PORTSLADE PRODUCTIONS have formed a live company . -
called The Five Past Twelve Company which is to
set up its activities in Munich as the centre and
launching pad of its international tours.
The
nucleus of the company, under the direction of
Maurice Rowdon, consists of RONNIE LEE WILLIAMS
(American), ROY MARTIN (British), BRENDAN DONNISON.
(British) and RUTH CAMERON (Canadian). Outside
this nucleus the company will audition in London
and Munich for English-speaking actors and actresses.
On its tours the Munich centre will always be named
on the programmes. For some time PORTSLADE
PRODUCTIONS have been looking for a suitable centre
for its tours in Europe, and the close affiliations
of all its members with Germany seemed to. make
Munich the obvious choice.
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


PORTSLADE PRODUCTIONS is financed in London by
Nicholas Kimber, money-broker, who would retain
a financial interest in the Munich enterprise.
The Company's last production was Maurice Rowdon's
play MAHLER at the Arts Theatre, London (handbill
enclosed).
It attracted the attention of Ken
Russell who subsequently made his?film of the same
name. An off-Broadway production of this play
is now projected, to be directed by Peter Delaunay.
Maurice Rowdon's Canadian play THE RYE MAN,
designed for restaurant or beer-hall presentation,
with music, will première in Montreal and is based
on his earlier play ESKIMO TRANCE which had two
productions in Britain, the first at the Victoria
Theatre, Stoke on Trent, directed by Peter Cheese-
man, and the second directed by the author himself
at the Mercury Theatre, London.
Maurice Rowdon's new one-man show BLACK BOBIN,
featuring Ronnie Lee Williams, the Black American
actor, and Roy Martin, actor-guitarist, is also
with lyrics and music, and an album is planned in
which Mick Tayler. of the Rolling Stones will be
participating.
This production is suitable for
a 500-seat theatre.
Maurice Rowdon's new small-cast plays (TICK TICK,
THE OPEN PAN SYSTEM etc), for two and three hands,
are designed for studio-theatre production.
Maurice Rowdon's CHRISTOPHE, a full-length Black
play, dealing with Haiti's king at the time of
Napoleon, with Voodoo drumming and ceremonies,
is for a large cast (correspondence from the
National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company
on this play is enclosed).
Negotiations are
pending with Oscar Lewenstein at the Roundhouse
in London for a production in 1977. The famous
pop-group MOTT THE HOOPLE has composed a complete
electronic sound backup for this play.
Maurice Rowdon's FINGERPRINTS ON THE WATER,
designed as an entirely new type of musical,
is also to be set up in 1977.
The book is
already complete.


Apart from his theatrical activities Maurice Rowdon
has recently written an international film called
JULIA for Susanna York based on. Jean Rhys's GOOD-
BYE TO MR MACKENZIE, located in Paris and London in
the Thirties, with music and cabaret from the period.
Maurice Rowdon is currently working with the Roman
producer MARIO FERRARI (Visconti's THE LEOPARD,
Fellini's ROMA etc), who has taken the JULIA script
into Warner Bros as his first project with them.
Maurice Rowdon is also writing an Italian film IN
CHIANTI for Mario Ferrari, for the Italian market,
and a script based on his novel AFTERWARDS, with an
Anglo-American cast.
Maurice Rowdon made the 55-minute FALL OF VENICE
for BBC Television in 1973. He was last' year a
director of the DARK AND LIGHT THEATRE, London.
Maurice Rowdon has published many books---novels,
travel, biography and history. His one-man show
BLACK BOBIN is in fact based on his latest book of
history, THE SPANISH TERROR, published in London
by Constable and in New York by St Martin's Press.
It is a study of Spain's imperial role in the six-
teenth century.
Rowdon's published works are as follows:
Novels
Hellebore the Clown (Chatto and Windus)
Of Sins and Winter (Chatto and Windus)
Perimeter West (Heinemann)
Afterwards (Barrie Books)
Travel
Italian Sketches (Gollancz)
A Roman Street (Gollancz)


Biography
Lorenzo the Magnificent (Weidenfeld/Regnery)
Leonardo da Vinci (Weidenfeld Great Lives)
History
The Fall of Venice (Weidenfeld/Praeger)
The Spanish Terror (Constable/St Martin's Press)
Maurice Rowdon is at present at work on a worldwide
book project THE THINKING DOGS for Doubleday in New
York and Ekon Verlag in Germany.


ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
Trevor Nunn Artistic Director and Chief Executive
Direction
H e Peggy Ashcroft Peter Brook Trevor Nunn
RSC
ESI PEA
Consultant Director Peter Hall
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon Warwickshire CV37 6BB
Incorporated under Royal Charter Patron Her Majesty the Queen
President The Earl of Harewood Chairman Kenneth R Cork
Telephone: Stratford-upon-Avon (0789) 3693
Deputy Chairman Sir George Farmer Vice-Chairman Dennis L Flower
Box Office Telephone: Stratford-upon-Avon (0789) 2271
Aldwych Theatre
London WC2B 4DF
Telephone: (01) 379 6721
Box Office Telephone: (01) 836 6404
17 December 1975
Please reply to Aldwych address
Maurice Rowdon
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
London SW6 1LB
Dear Mr Rowdon
Trevor Nunn passed on your play "Christophe" to me to read. We've
conferred. about it today, and he has asked me to return it to you
with our regrets that it seems impossible for the RSC.
We can both see that it's a play with immens se theatrical possibilities.
But it's hard to see how they could be realised with a cast of less
than twenty-five or thirty, all but six of them black. In our present
financial situation, it would be prohibitively expensive to mount,
and in any year it would be an unprecedented departure for us to put
on a play which used so few of our regular RSC players. Theoretically,
I know, while we are playing straight-run repertory at the Aldwych we
can cast any play ad hoc. But in practice this makes us all the more
concerned to maintain an obvious identity from production to production,
by using actors associated with the RSC in the past. In the nature
of Shakespearian casting, very few of these have been black.
Could I make one criticism of the script as it stands? I was put off
at the beginning of the play by the prologue scene with the tourists
and Tonton Macoute policeman. I can see that it conveys some necessary
information, but in most other ways it seemed to me unnecessary and
unhelpful: instead of suggesting that the story the play then tells
is reality rather than tourist legend, I think it has the reverse
effect. I'd have thought myself that the information the scene conveys
could be put over equally effectively by one of the English characters,
Tom Gulliver or Dr stewart, perhaps, and that the use of one of them as
a narrator-mediator between the story and an English audience might be
helpful: might, for instance, discourage them from juding Christophe's
rule by the standards of 1975 rather than the early 1800s.
Yours sincerely
Xonaldl
Ronald Bryden
Butlen
Play Adviser


RONNIE LEE WILLIAMS
'Born in Oakland, California.
BOYS IN THE BAND, Munich 1970
HAIR (Hudd) in the original ensemble, Munich,
Dusseldorf, 1968, 1969.
DO AS YOU LIKE IT (Orlando), Cologne, 1970.
HAIR Cologne and Vienna, 1970.
HAIR, directed new production for tour of Germany,
Austria and Switzerland, 1971, 1973.
TV FILMS, Germany
NBC/TV Colour me German (lead role) 1969.
ORF/ /TV. Neighbours lead role) 1969.
ZDF, /TV Tomorrow a Window to the Street, 1969.
ORF /TV Trip (lead role)
ZDF/TV The pawnbroker 197294
FEATURE FILM: Traumstadt- 1972.


BRENDAN DONNISON
HAIR, lead role and director in Germany, Austria,
Holland, Switzerland.
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (Annas) in Germany, also
sang on the album.
With the SAN QUENTIN: WORKSHOP:
Hatchet in THE CAGE: London, Munich, Frankfurt,
Bochum, Edinburgh Festival.
END GAME: Edinburgh.
THE WALL IS MAMA: Edinburgh, ICA in London and
New End Theatre, London.
With the MONSIEUR ARTAUD COMPANY:
With Sally Willis THE SAILOR: Edinburgh and Bracknell
Arts Centre, London.
MOBY DICK.
THE STAIRCASE.
Sartre's MEN WITHOUT SHADOWS.
JASON by Joe Praml.
FILMS: HoraceFOve's THE IMMIGRANT, TIRED OF WAITING.
RUTH CAMERON
Studied Drama at University of British Columbia, Canada.
She has played many roles in German theatres:
Pinter's THE INTERVIEW.
Arden's SERGEANT MUSGRAVE'S DANCE.
THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE.
A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE MAID.
Albee's THE A IMERICAN DREAM.
Kenneth Cameron's THE HUNDRED AND FIRST.
Joe Orten's RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR.
FUNERAL GAMES.
Beckett's HAPPY DAYS.
For her performance in HAPPY DAYS (1975) Ruth Cameron
was chosen 'Star of the Week' by the Abendzeitung,
Munich.


ROYMARTIN
Height: 5'10*
Eyes: Blue (2)
Hair: Various
ROY MARTIN. actor, director, musician, writer; poet, acrobat and Equity member, also rides horses,
performs car and motor-cycle stunts, and is an expert Scuba diver.
Early Training 1960 - Stuntman for Wamer Bros. Hollywood
1961 - Wall-of-death rider, Southend Amusement Park
1962-1965 Travelled in the East with The Magic Theatre
1966-69 Robert O'Neil's Actors Studio Company
Jonothan Hammond's Northend Troupe (plays by Paul Ableman and Roger Howard at London Arts
Lab and Mercury Theatre)
Quipu Productions (David Calderisi and David Halliwell)
Rivendo Productions (Alexis Kanner)
La Mama
Co-Director of Wherehouse La Mama (London). Ellen Stewart's London offshoot of her New York
company. Extensive European tours and TV appearances including:
'Hump' (in collaboration with the author, David Benedictus)
'GroupJuice' and 'Little Mother'
Title role in 'The Hilton Keen Show' - to which James Mossman devoted an entire TV
programme, Review (13 Dec 1969)
'obviously a bit of a shock for some older members of the audience - . imaginatively appalling -
cleverly devised - * brutally funny - - projected with vigour and abandon by this energetic
young company' - Guardian
Playschool (TV Director: Michael Cole)
Launched BBC TV's new series 'First Time Out' with "Programme', written and performed by
the company (TV Director: Anne Head)
'Does you mother know your watching' (TV Director: Michael Cole)
Roy Martin was Founder-1 Director of La Mama Amsterdam, launched with 'Evol', a
rock-musical, directed by and featuring Roy Martin.
. entirely effective - - The whole work is a free-flowing pastiche of contemporary
theatrical effects that succeeds in sensuously, ecstatically involving the audience and,
at the end of the performance, bringing them to their feet. : The music and songs are
delightful and the joyous involvement of the actors in their work is miraculous in the
face of the current theater of abstraction and alienation. - - Paradiso Fox, Amsterdam
Roy Martin's departure from the London La Mama company was noted by Irving Wardle in
The Times:
'Since I last saw them the Wherehouse have lost two of their strongest members,
Roy Martin and Neil Hornick. .
Classes and workshops in Experimental Theatre at London School of Contemporary Dance
Directed 'Spiggy Topes' 'Plastic Sock' at The Place, London
Quipu Productions - David Calderisi's 'Intersection' at Mercury Theatre, London, and
Phoenix Theatre, Leicester.
Co-directed. 'A Shakespeare Collage' for D.A.T. Company, Amsterdam
Directed La Mama Season at Pistol Theatre, Stockholm:
Leonard Melfi's "Stimulation'
Maria Irene Fornes' 'Dr. Kheal' (a one-man play directed and performed by Roy Martin)
Roy Martin's 'Five and a Half Minutes'


The Arts Council of Great Britain
10SPicadillyLondon WIVOAU
Telephone O1-6299495
19th November, 1975
Telegrams AmecLondon WI
Chairman Patrick Gibson
Secretary-General SirHugh Willatt
Maurice Rowdon, Esq.,
Director,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street,
London,
Dear Maurice,
I was glad to receive your letter of the 4th November and to hear that 'Christophe'
is finding favour with the British Council and at the National Theatre. I was
also delighted to hear that Peter Hall has taken a personal interest in the
play and that he and Lord Birkett were able to read it and reply to you So
quickly.
I apologise if you received no personal reply from me to your letter of the
19th December, 1974 concerning 'Christophe', but I do remember speaking to you
on the telephone at around that time. The letter in fact indicated that you
did not wish to apply under the New Drama Scheme, but that you were hoping to
involve the Drum Arts Centre in producing the play. The substance of the
letter was to inform us generally about events at the Dark and Light Theatre,
and as such your points were dealt with in subsequent correspondence to the
Dark and Light. I am sorry if you were expecting a personal reply.
Your criticisms of the repertory directors I must say did not surprise me, but
it would be wrong to assume that repertory directors feel that they can get
away with anything and have no concern for the needs of writers. The difficulties
writers face in the repertory theatres are of course well-known and deep-rooted
and may, have more to do with the whole nature of repertory organisations than
with a msequent con
lack of concern for writers. Let us hope that Watford will
take a continuing interest in 'Christophe'. I would suggest that if you have
still not heard from Oxford, you should get in touch with Kerry Crabbe there:
he has recently been appointed to look after the interests of writers at the
Playhouse and I happen to know that he arrived to find a backlog of scripts
awaiting his attention.
The Arts Council is, of course, aware of the needs of writers and through its
revised Schemes to Encourage New Writing In The Theatre, is endeavouring to
improve the wri ters' lot. I expect to see further improvement in the next
twelve mont ths.
I do, of course, agree with you abou t the sad circumstances of the Dark and
Light situation earlier this year. There.was, of course little that the Council
could do at that stage to help the Dark and Light sort out its problems. The
organisation's successor, the Black Theatre of Brixton, no doubt faces difficult
times ahead, but it has the advantage of being a new organisation, unencumbered
by the earlier history.
Yours sincerely, A
Clive
Clive Tempest


Telephone :
DAVID CONVILLE PRODUCTIONS LIMITED
c/o The New Shakespeare Company Limited
Telegrams:
Open Air Theatre. Regent's Park, London NW1
Conplay London NW1
11th November 1975
Maurice Rowdon sq
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
London SW6 1LB
Dear Mr Rowdon
Thank you for both your letters. I think I have read something like
twenty new plays in the last month, and this is the reason you have
not heard from me sooner. I fear we are unable to present your play.
I was once very interested in another play about Christophe written
by James Forsyth, and was unable to present it for financial reasons,
but sent the play around to a great many people including film
producers. I think the only companies who could present this are the
first-class repertory companies or the National, the RSC or Chichester.
Anyway, all good luck with it.
Youra sincerely
Dayid Corville
Directors: David Conville Charles Ross Philippa Conville
Registered Office: 27 Martin Lane, Cannon Street, London EC4
Registered in England: No. 347667


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Trevor Nunn,
We met last year I believe and had a discussion
about the Dark and Light Theatre of which I was then
a director. Now it's just dark.
I am sending you CHRISTOPHE at the suggéstion
of Miss Jane Edgeworth at the British Council with
whom I was earlier discussing it as the possible
British entry for the Lagos Festival and a subsequent
African tour.
We tried the National Theatre in September, and
I'm sure neither Peter Happ nor Lord Birkett would
mind me sending you photostats of their letters on
the play.
You will see that Lord Birkett mentions the
strong film possibilities of the script, and I do
find a lively interest among the producers I've
mentioned it to. I only hope that the theatre-
part, which interests me most, gels before the film-
part.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Address
The Archway
Chairman
Sirl Max Rayne
10a Aquinas Street
Director
Peter Hall
London SE1 8AE
Administrative Director Patrick Donnell
General Manager Anthony Easterbrook
Telephone
Secretary
Kenneth Rae
Cables/Telegrams Thenat London SE1
Thel National Theatre
Maurice Rowdon Esq.,
14 January 1975
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5, Tamworth Street,
London SW6 1LB
Dear Maurice,
Many thanks for your letter of 7th December, and please
excuse my long delay in replying.
I'm extremely pleased
that the idea of a Black Festival in collaboration with
the new National Theatre seems to interest you.
Yes is the answer: I would be extremely pleased to
receive the informal memorandum you propose outlining
the kind of Festival and the sources of finance.
For our part, I would have thought that the summer of 1976
was the kind of date to aim for.
This would have the
advantage of enabling us to do outdoor events as well as
activities within the various spaces and auditoria of our
new building.
With such a time scale, there's obviously no immediate rush
to get the thing prepared.
Do take your time with it, and
in the meantime, keep me in touch with all new developments
with the Dark and Light, and allied activities.
You don't
have to write a letter each time - just phone.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Mochael
Michael Kustow
Associaté Director
(Projects/Visitors)


H. M. TENNENT LTD.
Telephone No.:
M S F
CHAIRMAN : J. D. C. Noble
MANAGING DIRECTOR: Arthur Cantor (U.S.A.)
Address:
DIRECTORS: Bernard Gordon., Helen Montagu., K. J. Gillespie.,
Telegraphic
Joanna Rose (U.S.A.): John Bassett (Canada): Waring Jones (U.S.A.)
TENMONT, LONDON, W.1
CONSULTANT: John Perry
X 4
Registered in England No. 637797 Registered Office
Cables:
GLOBE THEATRE
TENMONT, LONDON
SHAFTESBURY AVENUE
LONDON, W.1
18th June 1975
Maurice Rowdon Esq
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
LONDON SW6 1LB
Dear Mr Rowdon
CHRISTOPHE
Thank you so very much for sending us your play, which
we have now had the opportunity of reading. We regret
that, after careful consideration, we would not be
interested in mounting a production of it.
I am, therefore, returning your script thank you again
for letting us see your work.
Yours sincerely
Manhhe a
HELEN MONTAGU


Dear Jane,
As you advised me to send CHRISTOPHE to
the National in the first place, and to return
it to them, this time to Lord Birkett, when
they got more money than expected, I thought
you might be interested to have copies of their
letters.
I do keep réminding Werner Schmid in
Zurich to send me back the cassettes of the
South African comedian, and he will do this
next week.
All good wishes,
Yours ever, 9
Maurice Rowdon


mistakes he made seemed to be due to his pleasure
at having a visitor!
The same visitor was present at one of Elke's
lessons. That morning she had astonished Dorothy
by solving multiplication problems which were supposed-
ly far beyond her present level.
Hitherto she had
been given problems of the most primitive order, 1 X 2,
1 X 3 and so on. She had attempted 5 X 20, giving
the answer of 85. But more intricate problems such
as 3 X 19, i X 17, 3 X 15, where numbers had to be
carried over, had not yet been attempted. Now,
without the smallest exercise in them, she was solving
them without hesitation or difficulty.
Dorothy
wished to show Mr Storz what she could do. She
chalked up 3 X 19 on the board and asked him not to
calculate the answer in his own mind in case Elke got
it telepathically


Prospect Theatre Company
TOBY ROBERTSON director
1/6 FALCONBERG COURT LONDON WIV 5DG
Tel: 01-437 7365/6 Grams: PROSCO LONDON
TR/AW
M. Rowdon Esq.,
22nd October, 1975
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5; Tamworth Street,
London SW6 1LB
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
Thank you for your letter of 3rd October. After a thorough
search, however, we can find no trace of "Christophe" in
this office, we have no record of it ever having arrived
here. As a general rule, we acknowledge all plays which
came into the office, so, unless you received an acknow-
ledgement from us it would appear that it might have been
lost in the post.
The only other alternative is that it might have been sent
to Mr. Robertson's home address. If you did, in fact do
this, then perhaps you could let me know and I will arrange
for it to be brought into the office.
I am sorry not to be more helpful. If it is possible for
another copy of "Christophe" to be sent, it will be read
at the earliest opportunity.
Yours sincerely,
Adison White,
Personal Assistant
to Toby Robertson.
Directors: G. Laurence Harbottle (chairman); Richard Cottrell; John Hale; lain Mackintosh; Toby Robertson: Dennis Ryland; Alderman P. J. Warren; Timothy West; Calton Younger.
Prospect Productions Limited: Registered Office, 1/5 Broad St., Oxford. Registered in England No. 550080


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Robertson,
I have received a letter dated 22 October from
your personal assistant about the above script and
it appears that the copy I sent you back in May must
have been lost, for there is no record of an acknow-
ledgement from your office.
I got in touch with you then on the advice of
Miss Jane Edgeworth at the British Council, with
whom I was discussing the play as a possible British
entry for the Lagos Festival, should it ever. happem.
Much more recently, and again on her advice,
we sent the play to the National Theatre, as the
spectacular nature of the play is beyond the means
of this small company. - I thought that now, rather
than your reading the play right away and perhaps
wasting your time, I would send you copies of two
of the letters from the National,' one from Peter
Hall, and. one from Lord Birkett, putting their un-
enviable situation. Now since your situation vis-
à-vis a big production might be the same I thought
I. would leave you to. ask for the script or not, as
you decide on reading the letters.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


mistakes he made seemed to be due to his pleasure
at having a visitor!
The same visitor was present. at one of Elke's
lessons.
That morning she had astonished Dorothy
by solving multiplication problems which were supposed-
ly far beyond her present level.
Hitherto she had
been given problems of the most primitive order, 1 X 2,
1 X 3 and so on.
She had attempted 5 X 20, giving
the' answer of 85. But more intricate problems such
as 3 X 19, Z1 X 17, 3 x 15, where numbers had'to be
carried over, had not yet been attempted.
Now,
without the smallest exercise in them, she was solving
them without hesitation or difficulty. Dorothy
wished to show Mr Storz what she could do. She
chalked up 3 X 19 on the board and asked him not to
calculate the answer in - his own mind in case Elke got
it telepathically


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth Street London SW6 1LB Tel: 01.385 4003
(vev
Directors: Maurice Rowdon and Nicholas Kimber
Arh Crucil
1 SAT
Chie
To-poraes
4.11.1975 Kehal
CHRISTOPHE
Deat Clive,
You may be interested to know that I sent the
above Black play, on the advice of Miss Jane Edgeworth
at the British Council, with whom I was discussing the
play as the British entry for the Lagos Festival, to
various London and provincial theatres, since its spect-
acular nature puts it beyond the financial scope of
this company. - On 9 May of this year I sent it to
Giles Havergal in Glasgow, Gordon McDougall at Oxford,
Richard Eyre at Nottingham and Stephen Hollis at the
Palace Theatre in Watford. Stephen Hollis called me
a few days later with a suggestion of perhaps starting
the play at his place for a tour, and I have seen him
several times since. There were no other replies,
though both Glasgow and Nottingham acknowledged the
script. Oxford didn't even acknowledge it. I sent
'reminder notes to all three on 3 October last, and
have received no replies even. to these.
Further on the advice of the British Council I
sent the play to the National Theatre in September.
I had a most positive reply from Peter Hall himself
within two or three weeks. Lord Birkett read the
play in a further week and found time to write me a
long letter about it. It seems to bé that there is a
big difference between the provinces and London, doesn't
it? No one can tell me that the provincial directors
are busier than Péter Hall. But they apparently can
get away with anything, and it is time writers began
to impress on you that they are an integral, and surely
quite important, part of the theatre, and that theatres
are not tailor-made instruments for the whims of their
artistic directors.
Not that you yourself are much better. I wrote to
you on 19 December last for help on CHRISTOPHE and re-
ceived no reply: You have killed the Dark and Light
Theatre, which I and other new members of the Board were
trying to- revive under a new title. The sorry crew in
charge of the place would no doubt have destroyed them-
selves (and perhaps me) in the end, but they must get
themselves together in their own way, not ours, as I
am sure you and everyone else on the Council know and
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


Portslade
Productions Ltd.
5 Tamworth
understand
hout
to do anything about
Street Londornet
no Toint n arguing about a situation
Directors: Hanlhetsetohten people who do receive money
from you are doubly obliged to do their work thought-
fully and efficiently.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon
Company Reg No. 51236 Reg Office 24 Castle Street Edinburgh 2
Registered as Theatrical Employers


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Mr Chardet,
I am sending you a copy of the above Black
play on the advice of Miss Jane Edgeworth at the
British Council with whom I have been discussing
it as the possible British entry for the Lagos
Festival.
You may also be interested in Peter Hall's
reaction to the script, so I am enclosing a copy
of his letter, together with a later oneefrom-
Lord Birkett explaining the Natinnal Theatre's
situation.
The spectacular nature of the script puts
it beyond the means, naturally, of my own small
company, which can just manage small try-outs.
But my partner, a money-broker, can call up
money if the venue is right and a white star or
two can be involved. There are three white
parts in the script.
Yours sincerely;
Maurice Rowdon


learn the letter which is still missing?' Dorothy
asked him. NO.
'Can you tap it just the same?'
To her surprise he tapped YES.
'What is it?' He
tapped once left and seven right (17), which was
indeed the value of T. She got very excited and
asked, 'Where do you know this letter from?' With-
out being coaxed or aided in any way he tapped the
word LOROR, adding another O at the end which she
did not write on the blackboard as she assumed it
was inconsequential.
'Is this word right?' she
asked him. NO!
'Which of the letters is wrong?'
5---which'she took to'refer' to :the: fifth letter or
R (of the five letters on the board).
I And any
other letters?' He tapped 1, which she took to be
the first letter or L.
'What should the first letter
He tapped 3 (R), so that the word would now be
RORO.
'Surely this isn't right?' He tapped 11 (G).
As she wrote that down, to make a new word, GORO,
he withdrew it by tapping three left (NO). She
erased G and said, 'Let's try once again!
What's
the first letter?'
This time he tapped 9 (D). So
it now read DORO.
'Now what about the fifth letter?'
He tapped, without help, 17 (T). So the word now
read DOROT.
'Is there a letter still missing?'
He tapped 10 (E), making the word DOROTE, in the
German pronunciation of 'Dorothy'. 4 It hardly seemed
possible and she wanted to cry with pleasure. And
he had done it so effortlessly, without the usual
coaxing from her---a day after she had reflected that
his tapping was so painfully slow!
But she had
learned to be cautious.
There was a strong poss-
ibility that a telepathic influence had operated
between them, since early in his tapping she had
guessed what he was aiming at, and she may even have
unknowingly interrupted his tapping at crucial points,
naturally not with gestures but by means of the satis-
faction she felt, to which a dog is so sensitive.


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Miss Cushingham,
Further to my letter from Italy, I tried to call
you this morning but find that Dick Mayo didn't give
me your phone number, so I had better send this to
you straight away.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


Dear Miss Cushingham,
I was having a talk with Dick Mayo yesterday and he :
suggested contacting you about a Black play of mine called
CHAISYOPHE IS KING, the story of Henri Christophe of Haiti
at the time of Nepoleon. Dick suggested you might well be
interested in helping us to set it up. I'11 be back in
England next week and will bring you a copy of the play.
Looking forward to meeting you.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Miss Cushingham,
Back in March Ronnie Lee and I were with Dick Mayo
in Montecarlo, and discussed various film and theatre
projects with him, one of which concerned the enclosed
Black play:
I sent you a script at once on my return to England
but got no reply: yesterday we decided to call in on you,
and found that Dick had given us the wrong number, or
else I had taken it down wrong. Anyway, my three letters
and the script obviously never arrived, since the house
we sent them to is empty and under decoration.
I have been discussing this play with Jane Edgeworth,
Head of Drama at the British Council, in connection with
the coming Lagos Festival. She likes the script very
much and if you do too I wonder if you could contact her,
since as you know an interest here can be most useful
financially.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


CHRISTOPHE
Dear Miss Cushingham,
I just wanted to put you in the picture about this
play. We shall probably be calling it CHRISTOPHE IS
KING, and intend to make much of the conflict between
the Voodoo element and the Christian.
The electronic
sound bakk-up has already been composed by Morgan Fisher
of the Mott the Hoople group and is most exciting to
hear.
The script, by the way, is true to the history of
this man who, born a slave, unable to read or write,
built up a Kingdom of the Blacks, and designed it to be
the First Black Empire of the West.
He was in all
things a dictator.
His Court was in the style of
George 111's, his architecture based on Versailles.
He won the attention of all political Europe in Nap-
oleon's time, as far as Russia. Now I believe it is
no good presenting history straight on, and the play
is therefore presented in a modern context, in Haiti
today, under Papa Doc's son, and actually presented
to the audience by a Ton Ton Macoute.
About four years ago Toby Rowland wanted to start
this piece off on Broadway in association with Merrick
and with Patrick Garland directing. It depended on
whether James Earl Tones was free and thankfully he was
not, as I think that today we have a much better chance
both audience-vise and performance-wise of getting what
we want. A few months ago I at last found the actor
I have been looking for all this time, as Christophe,
Ronnie Lee, an American Black, whom Dick knows too by
the way. As you will perhaps have seen, the play also
has three Whites. At one time, even four years ago,
a Black play in this country would have posed a big
problem but my recent experience, working in Black
theatre more than ever before, is that this problem has
diminished because of a new generation of actors.
Yours,
Maurice Rowdon


THE BRITISH COUNCIL
97/99 Park Street London W1Y 4HQ
telephone 01-499 8011
your ref
Maurice Rowdon Esq
Portslade Productions
our ref GTB/340/11 L-Z
Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
LONDON SW6 1LB
4 April 1975
Dear Mr Rowdon
Venetian Biennale
Thank you for your letter of 25 March.
Miss Edgeworth is away on an advance tour until
15 April, but I will pass. your letter to her on
her return.
Yours sincerely
Voama Guaur
Joanna Gowan
Secretary to Head of Drama
Drama and Music Department


TY ne
touset
POST CARD
1 E
THE ADDRESS TO BE WRITIEN-ON'THIS SIDE r
Mw Maunce lowdon
Portslade Predochions
5 Tamwor t Strect
LONDON
Swb
ILB


Nottingham Playhouse
Wellington Circus Nottingham NGI 5AF
Administration 44361 Box Office 45671
This is to acknowledge receipt of
CARISTOPHE
We shall contact you about this as soon as possible.
vdid Walled
Secretarktp the Director


CITIZENS' THEATRE
Gorbals Glasgow G5 9DS
Chairman of the Board of Directors
12th May 1975
Maurice Rowden,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5, Tamworth Street,
LONDON SW6 1LB
Dear Maurice Rowden,
Thank you for sending us the script of CHRISTOPHE, Mr. Havergal
is at the moment away on holiday but will read it. on his return.
Yours sincerely,
Cttamli
fane Cattermull
P.A. to the Director
Director
GILES HAVERGAL
Registered in Scotland No. 22513
Telephones
Administration (041) 429 5561
Production (041 429 5561
Box Office (0 129 0022


MICHAEL CODRON LTD.
Directors: Michael Codron I. A. Codron David Sutton
117/119, REGENT STREET
Secretary: M. L. Oliver
LONDON
(Reg. Office 124 Finchley Road. NW3 5HT No. 556979)
Telephone
Maurice Rowdon Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth St.
London, S.W.6.
13th May, 1975.
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
CHRISTOPHE
Thank you for sending this play to me but my programme is
complete until the end of the year when I think I would
then like to take a sabbatical. For this reason, perhaps
it would be best for you to send the play to another
producer.
Thank you for thinking of me.
Yours sincerely,
MICHAEL CODRON.
Enc:


DIAGHILEV
Dear Mr Blackburn,
It was a pleasure for me and Ronnie Williams
to méet you with Werner Schmid.
We found your suggestions about the National
Theatre's proposed Black Festival most helpful.
This is just to say that we have by no means
forgotten the musical called FINGERPRINTS ON THE
WATER which we discussed, and that it will be on
its way to you shortly.
Yours sincerely,
Maurice Rowdon


THE BRITISH COUNCIL
65 Davies Street London W1Y 2AA
telephone 01-499 8011 ext
your ref
Maurice Rowden Esq.
our ref GTB/340/11 A-K
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
please quote our reference
LONDON SW6 1LB
1 April 1975
Dear Mr Rowden
Thank you so much for letting me read 'Christophe' which I liked very
much indeed, and I herewith return the script. Do let me know where
and when it is being shown and I will certainly try to come along or
else have it covered by a member of Drama Department.
Regarding contracts,in Western Europe, I think probably the best thing
would be for you to meet Dr deBlieck next time he comes over to London.
We are in constant touch with him as he is handling several of our major
European tours this year. He would certainly give you sensible advice.
In the meantime, herewith his address and telephone number in case you
would like to contact him direct:-
Dr Jan deBlieck
Oostduinlaan 68
The Hague
Holland
Do keep in touch about your activities, you had such an awful cold when
you came into see me that I don't think we got through your full agenda!
Yours sincerely
Yue Adywsoik
Jane Edgeworth
Head of Drama
Prama and Music Department
je.jg
encs


Dear Mrs. Brinkman,
My associate Mr. Maurice Rowdon is at present on the
continent looking into the possibilties of presenting
english language plays in german speaking conntries.
Vienna was among the cities he visited and aftér héaring
about your theater there he attempted to get in touch with
you. We were given your address here in London. We havê
several projects which we think might interest you, and
besides I would enjoy meeting you personaly since I too
have worked in Vienna as an actor.
Could, we manage it perhaps before you have to go back over?
I hope so.
Sincerely,
Ronald Williams
p.s. If I'm not at the aboue number
could you leave yours?


Hampstead Theatre Club
Founder: James Roose-Evans
SWISS COTTAGE CENTRE LONDON NW3
ADMINISTRATION 722 9224 BOX OFFICE 722 9301
Artistic Director: Michael Rudman General Manager: Ruth Marks
Maurice Rowdon
Portslade Productions Ltd
5 Tamworth Street
LONDON SW6 1LB
4 April 1975
Dear Maurice
Our literary manager has finally given his attention to the
enclosed play and I am afraid that, due to his reaction, we
wouldn't be interested in producing it here and I am afraid I
can't recommend it to Gilbert Moses, so I am returning it to
you now.
Yours sincerely
Michael Rudman
Artistic Director
ENC: CHRISTOPHE
Directors of Hampstead Theatre Club Limited : Michael Codron, Richard Cottrell, Margo Ford, Peter Govett (Chairman),
Eddie Kulukundis, Pieter Rogers, James Roose-Evans, Alexander Schouvaloff, Bob Swash, Edmund Tracey


Directors Oscar Lewenstein
Oscar A Beuselinck
Leonard F Ridgley
BAMAXOXX
KOXOSXMUK
Oscar Lewenstein Productions Ltd
*Mxrxr
Lerderwfx
11, Western Esplanade, Hove, Sussex. BN4 1WE.
Telephone: Brighton (0273) 418705.
TRMXXAN3XXX
5th December, 1975
M. Rowdon, Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Streetr
London, SW6 1LB.
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
CHRISTOPHE
Thank you so much for your letter of the 2nd instant
regarding the above. This subject interests me, but
unfortunately I am going abroad tomorrow and will be
away for six weeks and shall not have time to read it
before my return. I hope this will be okay. Incidentally
plans for the Round House are very uncertain at the moment
so please don't hold up any other approaches whilst waiting
for me to read the script.
I will get in touch with you again in about eight weeks
time.
Yours sincerely,


Directors Oscàr Lewenstein
Oscar A Beuselinck
Leonard F Ridgley
DUXNXXXXX
XXXXXXXX408X001
Oscar Lewenstein Productions Ltd
11, Western Esplanade, Hove, Sussex. BN4 1WE.
Telephone: Brighton (0273) 418705.
TRAUXXXXEXXX
5th December, 1975.
M. Rowdon, Esq.,
Portslade Productions Ltd.,
5 Tamworth Street;
London, SW6 1LB.
Dear Mr. Rowdon,
CHRISTOPHE
Thank you so much for your letter of the 2nd instant
regarding the above. This subject interests me, but
unfortunately I am going abroad tomorrow and will be
away for six weeks and shall not have time to read it
before my return. I hope this will be okay. Incidentally
plans for the Round House are very uncertain at the moment
so please don't hold up any other approaches whilst waiting
for me to read the script.
I will get in touch with you again in about eight weeks
time.
Yours sincerely,
pri


Ilex House,
Wells next the sea,
Norfolk.
April 27th, 1960
My dear Maurice:
Itis wonderful to know that we are at last in the
same country at the same time; though quite when we will meet,
I don't know. My sister who lives in NY is coming to Wells
on about May the 9th; my parents have a car, but I need to
take a test before I can drive it legally.
Was fascinated to hear of your novel, which I much
want to read.
Heinemann have commissioned me to write a long novel
about the Arab world.
Do you favour the transmission of consciousness (i.e.
he felt, he thought, he remembered )through one person only, or
through several? At the moment, I am inclined to make all my
charactess speak and act only, with the exception of one central
chracter, not the most positive, but the most litmus. Is this
right?
I wish we could meet: ifonly to discuss these vital
technical problems on whose right solution so much depends.
You saw Jabbra had published a book? Doreen Warriner
says it is good, and that I come in; I have rushed to order a
copy; it would be magnificent if I could bring a case for
libel, wouldn't it? Apparently I am introduced in a Turkish
bath; my name ( if it is me) being Brian Flint. Isuppose
Brian is as Oirish as Desmond? It may, on the other hand,be
you: though could a nyone ever mistake us?
Penury will soon be my lot! Holiday, after paying
me 1500 dollars for my article onNasser, which took thr e rewrites
beforethey would accept it .
and then they accepted with
acclaim and thanks - e suddenly cancelled the article ( though
not the payment) and my agent, Carl Brandt, writes it is due
to Igraeli success in convincing NY opinion. AndHuliday
now caution me that they don't want me to write any articles
with any kind of attitude to politics! Articles on the Near
East,that is: which shows what a great and wonderfully objective
country Simpson's homeland is! Because how anyone can write
an article without an attitude, I don't know. Of course, if
the attitude is a Foreign Office sneer at wogs, that's OK: that's
just objective reporting, not having it put over you, hard-bouledness.


My lunch with James was pleasant and cost him a lot, or the
firm. He is extremely intelligent. He warned me that this
time I must not write carelessly ( he had to take the red pencil
to a lotin A Woman Beseiged!) and that I must be prepared for
several radical rewrites; he could almost graduate to Holiday,
I think? There was also much talk about costing, and the sacred
maximum figure of 100,000 words was mentioned several times.
It is all frightening, I find: as I want to put the Arab East
from 47 to 60 onto my canvas; or should it be hardboard'?
I would MUCH VALUE from you a few notes, from your angle,
which is not length or poundage, I know! but on what youthink
I do wéll, what I do less well, what I should avoid, and so on.
I really would value this. The novel is in the stage that many
of the shrubs in this garden are: growing, where a slight rope,
loosely tied round the tree's neck, does not strangle but pulls
in the right way, away from a dangerous wind. Could you tell me
about sex: more or less of it? Politics? One thing I am going
bc to/very explicit about: money. Much too little mentioned in
modern novels.
Have you read the Durrell novels about Alexandria? I think
they are pretentious, rather than profoudd, flowery in a way that
is Alexnadrian; nothing else of Alex. comes across; it is a masturbation
vision, I find, wi th characters far less real than in MY fantasies.
Love to Annette: is she sculpting in Essex? Is it a good
scenery for the plastic arts? Un the whole, East Anglia lends
itself to painting most: it is the one region of England with a
constnat radition of art, among the people. There is a painter
here, Cox, who is a whelk-fisherman, and paints magnificently.
When it is too rough for him to put to sea.
Love to you, too, my fellow-martyr to a horrible age .
Deye Ngmans


ism
HARPER& BROTHERS
PU'B LIS HI ERS. S'IN CE -8
49 East 33rd Stréet, New York 165N:Y. -
November 2, 1953
i SFF
Dear Mr. Rowdon:
As" you 'may have heard, Cass Canfield. has written to: Harold
'Raymond 'regretfully d'eclining HELLEBORE THE CLOWN, which Mr..
had send' in to him. -We were much
with the.
Raymond
impressed
writing. but did. not' feel it wasabook with which we. could do
sufficiently well in: this. country. I-am. writing you séparately 7
about this- because of our-previous corréspondence and, particularly,
because of my. strone.continuing ihtérest in your work. Back on.
September 25th, you wrot'e about"another book called THE: EMBALMERS,
and' I. said I would be very' happy. to receive. it. Should. I have
réceived it? It
not
has
come.
d a 'f
1 f
Sincerely yours,
Simon Michael Bessie -
General Editor.
Mr. Maurice Rowdon. : *A
bei von Schack-Lukschy
: "Berlin. : Grunewald
Falterweg 31
Germany
SMB:jr
y A
CABLE ADDRESS: HARPSAM
TELEPHONE MURRAY HILL 3-1900


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