Wesley France

Wesley France. (19**-). Producer, lighting designer and company manager.

Career

He was senior production manager for the Market Theatre in Johannesburg for eight years in the 1980s and has been company manager and lighting supervisor for many international tours. Since 1991 he has toured internationally with Handspring Puppet Company

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

For the Market Theatre he lit Sweeney Todd at the Laager, Forbidden Fruits, Groucho at Large, Stukkie Jols, The Duck Variations, Spooks, Gertrude Stein and a Companion, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Silent Movie, Death and the Maiden.

For Handspring Puppet Company he did Woyzeck on the Highveld, Faustus in Africa, The Chimp Project, Ubu and the Truth Commission, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse, Zeno at 4am and Confessions. Also technical director for William Kentridge’s 2007 production of The Magic Flute with the Brussels Opera.

Other productions as lighting designer include Making Like America, Nag, Generaal, Nongogo, East, Hysteria, Titus Andronicus, Gertrude Stein and a Companion, Lillian, Thing?, The King of Laughter (2004) and Suddenly the Storm in 2017.

He was production manager for a number of Fugard productions such as The Road to Mecca, A Place with the Pigs and in 1992 for Playland. He was production manager for the multi-award winning show Shadowlands and company manager for So What's New? on its German Tour.

Awards, etc

Has been nominated numerous times for a Vita Award for Best Lighting Design.

Sources

Making Like America programme notes, 1986.

Various entries in the NELM catalogue.

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