Gordon Dickerson

Gordon Dickerson (19**-) is a London based theatrical agent.

Biography

Born in I was born in Kingston, London, and then at the age of 3 months flew with my mother to join my father in Libya where he was working as an air traffic controller. My brother and sister were born in Libya. We then moved to Cyprus and then to Aden. Whilst we were living in Aden, at the age of 8, I started school in Sussex, England, and would re-join the family in Aden and then Kenya during the school holidays. The family returned to the UK and we lived in Northampton where I went to the local comprehensive school and then when we moved to Brighton I attended Varndean Grammar School. At the age of 18 I went to Southampton University where I gained a BA (Hons) in Modern History and Politics. Whilst at Southampton I direted a production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and appeared in several plays including ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDERNSTERN ARE DEAD little knowing that a few years later I would be promoting that very play and all Stoppard’s other works when I joined his agent Kenneth Ewing at Fraser & Dunlop Scripts Limited!

Reveal the date of my birth!!!! You are welcome to include the information about Kenneth.

Reza is my own South African client and that came about through Steven’s introduction. I attach a list of the writers I represent several of whom have had plays performed in South Africa produced by Pieter Toerien or long ago by the then various Performing Arts Councils – Pieter has recently expressed interest in FAMILY SECRETS by the Italian playwright Enrico Luttmann, a new play that is taking Europe by storm!

he studied Modern History and Politics at Southampton University and on graduating began to work in various capacities front of house at The Theatre Royal, Brighton. After 7 months he landed a job as the assistant to the Theatre Producer at The Robert Stigwood Organisation in Brook Street, London, where he worked on shows such as Jesus Christ Superstar at the Palace Theatre, Evita at the Prince Edward Theatre, the London premiere of Steven Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at Drury Lane and a very short lived show from Australia at the Phoenix Theatre.

As his job became more precarious, he left the company to travel to New York, hoping to land a job there, but a few months later an opportunity arose back in London at the Literary Agency, Fraser and Dunlop Scripts Ltd in Regent Street. After a stint as temporary assistant to the managing director he was offered a full time job as an agent with specific responsibility for promoting the agencies stage plays regionally in the UK and overseas.

A few years later the agency merged with another and the newly combined organisation PFD moved to new offices in Chelsea Harbour. By the early nineteen nineties he felt in need of some kind of change and decided to leave the agency, but was persuaded by a number of clients including John Osborne to set up on his own and to represent them.

This is what occurred and since 1994 he has operated as an independent literary agent, occasionally acquiring new clients, but always trying to ensure that he had only as many writers and plays as he could cope with as a one man operation. He observes that as retirement beckons the work of placing new plays by unknown authors has become much more difficult in the UK. For example, although there is still a great demand for well written small cast comedies in Europe, there is little outlet for these in the UK - certainly not enough to generate an ongoing income for writers. There are opportunities for writers in other areas such as film and television, of course, but it has become very difficult for most writers to be able to sustain a career from their writing. In addition, the world has moved on so much in the last few years that even terrific plays written in the seventies and eighties let alone those from the fifties and sixties bear little resemblance to the lives we all now lead.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Gordon Dickerson is the international agent for the South African playwrights Reza de Wet, Steven Stead

Sources

Personal submission by Gordon Dickerson (6 September, 2018)

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