Lara Foot

Lara Foot (1967/8[?*]-) is a South African director, playwright and theatre manager.

(Also known as Lara Foot-Newton.)

Biography
Born Lara Foot in Pretoria, she completed a BA (Drama) at University of the Witwatersrand (1989), and a MA in Drama at the University of Cape Town (2007).

She was married to and collaborated with Lionel Newton for a while, working as Lara Foot-Newton, but reverting to her maiden name afterwards.

In theatre management
Initially a free-lance director, she joined the Market Theatre as Resident Director (1996-1997), then became Associate Artistic Director (1998-2000). In her time there she founded the Barney Simon Young Directors and Writers Festivals. After spending 2004 in London working with Sir Peter Hall with a Rolex International Theatre Award, she returned to become Resident Director and Dramaturg for the Baxter Theatre (2005-2007). In 2009 she became the Artistic Director for the Baxter Theatre Centre and in January 2010 she was appointed as CEO and Artistic Director.

Directing credits
Over the years she has directed over 50 professional productions both as Lara Foot and Lara Foot-Newton, 38 of which have been new South African plays. Her credits include **, ** Paul Slabolepszy’s The Return of Elvis Du Pisanie (1992), Nicholas Ellenbogen’s Nick goes Native (Amphitheatre, 1992), Athol Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye (Upstairs at the Market, 1994), Sue Pam-Grant and D.J. Grant’s Take the Floor (the Laager, 1994), Ma-Gents (1997), Tshepang (2003-2011), Betrayal (2006), Amadeus (2006), ***, Karoo Moose (2007/8),  Scrooge (Baxter Theatre, 2013),  Fishers of Hope (Taweret) (2014), The Inconvenience of Wings (2016)Solomon and Marion, Woyzeck,

As playwright
As playwright her works include Tshepang (2003), Hear and Now (with Lionel Newton), The Well Being (with Andrew Buckland and Lionel Newton), Reach, Karoo Moose, Fishers of Hope (Taweret) (2014), The Inconvenience of Wings (2016) all of which have been produced in South Africa and abroad, and most been published, many of them by Oberon Books.

Film work
In later years she also worked in film, writing and co-directing the multiple award-winning short film And There is the Dust (2007?*), being asked to join the Sundance Film Writers’ Lab (2007) and the Sundance Film Directors’ Lab (2008).

Awards
Her numerous awards include the Fleur du Cap Award for Outstanding Young Director (Rosalie van der Gucht Prize, 1992), National Vita Award (shared with Athol Fugard) for Best Director (1994), Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award (1995) and Fleur du Cap Award for Best New South African Play for Tshepang (2003), among others. Rosalie van der Gucht Prize for New Directors (1992), ***. She is also a Sundance Fellow and in 2016 she was the Featured Artist at the 2016 NAF.

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