Beth Dickerson

Beth Dickerson (1928-2015). Actress, director, academic, poet and writer.

Biography

She died in Grahamstown on 22 April 2015 at the age of 87.

Youth

Training

She studied at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

Career

Beth Dickerson was a Senior Lecturer in charge of Theatre and Drama in Education at the Drama Department of Rhodes University. During her career she visited university drama departments, drama schools, theatre in education companies and children's theatre companies in Australia, U.S.A. and Britain. She adjudicated play festivals and Eisteddfods, including the National Eisteddfod in Johannesburg and the 1820 Festival Eisteddfod - the latter, on different occasions, in both English and Afrikaans. She also judged the Salter's Cup festival.

She had considerable experience in directing and also in scripting plays, notably a play called Katherine Mansfield and the Writing Game, based on the short stories and journals of Katherine Mansfield. She directed many plays both for the Rhodes Drama Department and for outside companies, including the premiere of Guy Butler's historical play, Take Root or Die. She also scripted and directed two children's theatre plays - one from Mary Norton's stories of The Borrowers, for which she also wrote the lyrics for the songs, and the other from the African stories collected by Hugh Tracey under the title The Lion on the Path. She was a founder member of the Southern African Association for Drama and Youth Theatre, and on occasion worked as a group leader during the workshops at the annual conferences. She was the Chairman of the Grahamstown Christian Arts Group, for which she directed programmes and performances.

In 1986 she was acting head of the Rhodes University Drama Department. She retired in 1992.