Lara Foot-Newton

(1967/8[?*]-) Director, playwright and theatre manager.

REQUIRES EDITING

Born Lara Foot in Pretoria, completed a BA (Drama) at University of the Witwatersrand (1989), and a MA in Drama at the University of Cape Town (2007). 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. Over the years she has directed over 40 professional productions as Lara Foot and Lara Foot-Newton.

Directing credits

Her directing 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), Betrayal (2006), Amadeus (2006), ***, Karoo Moose (2007/8), Scrooge (Baxter Theatre, 2013). .

As playwright

As playwright her works include Tshepang, Hear and Now (with Lionel Newton), The Well Being (with Andrew Buckland and Lionel Newton), Reach, and Karoo Moose, all of which have been produced in South Africa and abroad and been published. Tshepang. (Baby rape) Duckrabbit (Lara Foot Neweton & Gerhard Marx) se Karoo weergawe van Waiting for Godot. Mncedisi Shabangu, Kholeka Quabe in Tshepang, Artscape.

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). Married Lionel Newton in 19** and has ** (Tucker, 1997)

Foot has received acclaim for her hard-hitting and award-winning work with productions such as Solomon and Marion, Tshepang, Karoo Moose, Woyzeck and Betrayal.

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), ***.

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