Edgar Perkins

Edgar Perkins was a theatre manager and director based in the Transvaal in the late 19th century.

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

In January 1890 Perkins took the Edgar Perkins Lyric Opera Company to Cape Town for the first time, where they performed in the Exhibition Theatre, Cape Town.

The company was managed and directed by Edgar Perkins and the performers included R.S. Gregg, E. le Hay, Dennis Coyne, Frank Wheeler, Harry Miller, Ada Bemister, Carrie Nelson, Harriet Wood, and Ella Bankhardt. Musical direction was by James Hyde. The repertoire consisted of inter alia Dorothy (Cellier and Stephenson), Falka (Leterrier and Vanloo/Farnie), Pepita (Chivot and Durn), Erminie (Bellamy and Paulton), Yeoman of the Guard (Gilbert and Sullivan), The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan) and Patience (Gilbert and Sullivan).

F.C.L. Bosman (1980) mentions that the company's repertoire consisted entirely of light comic opera, and according to D.C. Boonzaier (1923), reporting on the 1890 Cape Town season, Perkins had "very artistic ideas in the direction of mise-en-scène" and his operas were staged "lavishly in regard to scenery and costume".

Sources

D.C. Boonzaier. 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 389-390

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Author of an article on "Brett Bailey" in Middeke, Schnierer and Homann (2015). Martin Middeke, Peter Paul Schnierer and Greg Homann (editors). 2015. The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.