André van Gyseghem

(18**-19**) Belgian-born director. An international director of the avant-garde school. Directed the Pageant of South Africa for the Empire Exhibition in 1936. He worked with the Cape Town Repertory Theatre Society and the Johannesburg REPS in the 1930s and 1940s, directing Man and Superman at the Little Theatre, Cape Town in 1937 and Romeo and Juliet in the Pretoria Opera House and the Wits University Great Hall in 1949. He also became involved with African theatre groups, including the Bantu People’s Theatre, for whom he directed The Hairy Ape in 1936-7. VAN GYSEGHEM, Andre. British Director. Directed The Pageant of Southern Africa in 1936, in Johannesburg. Directed Romeo and Juliet for the Reps to commemorate twenty one years of existance. It was performed in the Wits University Great Hall and Pretoria Opera House in 1949 and starred Leon Gluckman, Eugenie Heyns, Muriel Alexander and Herbert Kretzmer. Sets by Len Grosset and costumes by Louis Jacobson impressed. Invited Leon Gluckman to work at England’s prestigious Nottigham Playhouse for two years.

Sources

See Du Toit, 1988; Kruger 1999, Inskip 197*; Tucker, 1997

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