The Company of Four

There were two acting groups who called themselves The Company of Four.

The Company of Four, Port Elizabeth

The founding of the Company of Four was in 19??.

Port Elizabeth Theatre Guild Foundation Members included Andre Huguenet, Will Jamieson, Gladys Baynes, Helen Wilkins and Noel Cudmore.

1952: The Company of Four produced Antigone by Jean Anouilh with Maurice Weightman and Will Jamieson in the Arts Hall, Port Elizabeth (June).

1953: The Company of Four was one of the organisations which participated in the play King Henry VIII which was staged at the Feather Market Hall to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (June).

According to the March 1985, edition of Scenaria magazine (Issue no 50) and Wright and Gubb's article in Shakespeare in Southem Africa, The Company of Four assumed the name of the Amateur Theatre Guild from 1951 till 1958 when it became the Port Elizabeth Theatre Guild.

For more information, see Amateur Theatre Guild

Sources

Antigone The Company of Four theatre programme, June 1952.

Laurence Wright and Lin Gubb. 'A Tribute to "Stratford-on-Baakens": Thirty Years of the Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival'. Shakespeare in Southem Africa Vol. 3. 1989. 1-8.

The Company of Four, Cape Town

The later group, The Company of Four was a theatre production company founded by René Ahrenson, Donald Inskip, Leonard Schach and Cecilia Sonnenberg making its bow at the Baxter Theatre with The Homecoming in 1977.

Subsequent productions included The Price (1978), Paradise is Closing Down, What the Butler Saw (1979), The Dresser (1980), Beecham (1981), 84 Charing Cross Road (1981), Children of a Lesser God (1982-3), Pack of Lies (1983).

Sources

Tucker, 1997.

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