Clare Stopford

Clare Stopford (19**-) Actress and director.

Biography

Training

Studied at the University of Cape Town Drama Department

Career

Worked at the The Space in the 1970s. Worked for the Market Theatre on ***, gradually taking on directing projects and becoming a resident director there. Also worked for PACT, notably at the Windybrow Theatre.

Clare began her theatre career at the Space Theatre. Following a move to Johannesburg, she worked for PTP, NAPAC, PACT, Market Theatre, CAPAB, and SABC.

A restless actress who was never happy waiting for the phone to ring, Clare initiated many projects with colleagues, e.g. with Lynne Maree, Neil McCarthy and Bo Petersen.

Barney Simon convinced Clare to leave acting and become the Resident Director at the Market Theatre for two years (1988-1989).

She became Associate Artistic Director at the Market from 1995-1997.

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

Performed in Along Came a Spider (with CAPAB), Death of a Salesman (Rep Season), The Relapse (Rep Season), The Duchess of Malfi (in 1979), The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp (in 1979). Happy Birthday (for Toerien/Firth in 1980).

Space: acting in The Arnold Bliss Show, The Duchess of Malfi, The Final Sting of the Dying Wasp, A Flea in her Ear, Four Twins, Patty Hearst and Rape – A Revue.

Together with Nomhle Nkonyeni, Aletta Bezuidenhout, Nandi Nyembe and Jacqui Singer she workshopped and starred in Ulovane Jive which was the opening production of the Windybrow Theatre circa 1986. She starred in Bobby Heaney’s production of Jean Genet’s The Maids at the Windybrow Theatre in 1987. She starred in Fred Abrahamse’s production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Market Theatre in 1989.

She directed Lanford Wilson’s Burn This at Upstairs at the Market in 1989.

Other productions include Lillian, A Doll's House (1990), Hanna, Hanna, ek sê and Heidi Chronicles. In 1990 Clare directed Other People's Money for Pieter Toerien. The following years saw Clare directing award-winning productions like Scenes from an Execution (1994), Hysteria, Kafka Dances, Skylight, Cuba and his Teddy Bear and The Dead Wait.

Major productions as director are Twelfth Night (Maynardville, 1998), Romeo and Juliet (Maynardville, 2000) .

In 2002 Clare directed a new South African play Chasing Chairs at the Liberty Theatre and in 2004 Green Man Flashing.

Split Ends with Lynne Maree, National Madness and Scavenger's Dream with Neil McCarthy, Upfront with Lynne Maree and Bo Petersen, Out of the Blue, and her own play The Patchers.

Clare directed The Breath of Life by David Hare in 2004.

She has directed for television, most notably Soul City and the series Zero Tolerance.

Awards, etc

Scenes from an Execution at the Market Theatre in 1994 for which she received the Vita Award as Director of the Year jointly with Marthinus Basson.

Clare has twice won both Regional and National Vita Best Director Awards.'

Sources

SACD 1979/80; 1980/81.

Tucker, 1997.

Programme of Pieter Toerien's production of The Breath of Life, 2004.

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