Pieter Toerien
Encyclopedia
Pieter Toerien for 40 years, South Africa
's foremost theatre impresario.
Toerien began his theatre career while still at school presenting puppet shows to schools in his home town, Cape Town
.
His first venture after school aged 17 introduced the concept of bio-vaudeville – persuading cinema managements to have live entertainment before the feature film.
Under the mentorship of Britain
’s theatre agent Herbert de Leon and in partnership with Basil Rubin he brought to South Africa
British
variety artists such as Alma Cogan
and Dickie Valentine
; eventually adding Russ Conway
(1964), Peter Nero
(1966), Shelly Berman, Cyd Charisse
, Tony Martin, Françoise Hardy
and Maurice Chevalier
(1967) to his list of luminaries .
His greatest coup was Marlene Dietrich
. Aged 20 he sat on the street outside her apartment until curiosity compelled her to invite him in. He signed her to tour in 1965 and again in 1966. They remained friends until her death in 1992 aged 91.
In 1966 he tentatively shifted to the dramatic stage, often bringing entire productions from the West End to South Africa, cast, sets and costumes.
Funding all his own productions he famously claimed that he produced farce and comedy to subsidize less commercial theatre.
Continuing with the successful business formula of signing overseas box-office attractions he brought names like Hermione Gingold
from New York for Noel Coward’s "Fallen Angels", Joan Fontaine
for Fredrick Knott’s thriller "Dial M for Murder".
Other names included Barbara Windsor
, June Whitfield
and Sir Michael Redgrave.
With rigid censorship laws in South Africa in the 70s and 80s, plays were continually under scrutiny by the law. Ronald Millar’s "Abelard and Heloise" called for a nude scene and actress Heather Lloyd-Jones consented to the demands of the script. Audience curiosity filled houses to capacity. The censorship board were given a dim silhouette of Miss Lloyd-Jones and the play was allowed to continue.
Toerien did not escape more aggressive raids when productions were closed down.
When the word ‘gay’ was still taboo Toerien brought "The Other Side of the Swamp" to the boards. Writer Royce Ryton himself played opposite Eckard Rabe under Graham Armitage’s direction. By running for a year this production broke a South African record.
Writers Ben Travis, Ray Clooney and Alan Ayckbourn became audience favourites; as did Agatha Christie
.
From the early '80s, British comedy actor and director Rex Garner became associated with Toerien with many box office successes; Ray Cooney's "Out of Order" and "It Runs in the Family", Michael Pertwee's "Birds of Paradise" and Robin Hawdon's "Don't Dress for Dinner".
Since the 70s he has always owned his own theatres. The first, The Intimate, a 235 seater, in partnership with Shirley Firth, was followed by The Barnato and the Andre Huguenot.
In 1980 he saved an old theatre from demolition and opened The Alhambra in Braamfontein, Johannesburg with Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
. Refurbishing the old building he added two more theatres to the complex, the Leonard Rayne, opened 18th July 1983, (renamed the Rex Garner in 1994) and the Richard Haines Theatres.
In 1988 he purchased the derelict Alvin Cinema in Camps Bay
, Cape Town
and, with designer Jan Corewyn transformed it with a post modern façade draped with a sculptured curtain. He named it Theatre on the Bay. http://www.theatreonthebay.co.za
With the decentralization of Johannesburg
's CBD Toerien moved his Alhambra operation to the north of Johannesburg opening Pieter Toerien's Montecasino Theatre complex. Here he runs 2 theatres, one with 320 seats and a studio theatre with 160 seats http://www.montecasinotheatre.co.za
Lining the walls of Toerien's theatres are photographs of the innumerable actors who have worked for him over the years as well as posters of past productions "Sleuth", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Equus", "Amadeus", "Agnes of God", "M Butterfly", "Master Class", "Private Lives", "Stage Struck", "Quartermaine's Terms", "Side By Side With Sondheim".
The works of such eminent British writers as Noel Coward
, Tom Stoppard
, Simon Gray
, and Peter Shaffer
have all been mounted in Toerien’s theatres.
In the '80s, Toerien brought Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s "Tom Foolery" to South Africa. This association has resulted in South Africa receiving many of the phenomenal successes of Macintosh's London musical theatre, Les Misérables
, a co-production with Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Tsogo Sun; Cats
which toured Scandinavia, the Far East and Beirut; The Phantom of the Opera
which toured the Far East, ending in Hong Kong. These were followed by The Sleeping Beauty on Ice, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
and Jesus Christ Superstar
, which was originally banned in South Africa as blasphemous after it opened on Broadway in 1971, and which travelled to Athens in 2007.
2007 will see the staging of The Lion King
in a splendid new 1900 seater lyric theatre being especially built by Tsogo Sun at Montecasino in Johannesburg
. It will be the tenth largest in the world.
Another South African record was set by actor Tim Plewman who in 2006 ended an eight year run of Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman
. Plewman, had given 1500 performances of this one man show.
Toerien has not limited himself to theatre management. During the period of South Africa’s transition he worked extensively with WESTAG Task Group on the Performing Arts sub-committee. In this area of civic responsibility he also gave of his expertise on the CAPAB board to assist them in their adjustment to become Artscape. He was also on the board of the National Arts Council and the Western Cape Cultural Commission.
Bibliography: Just the Ticket, Percy Tucker.
Television documentary: To the Edge by Peter Bode.
The Star Newspaper
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
's foremost theatre impresario.
Toerien began his theatre career while still at school presenting puppet shows to schools in his home town, Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
.
His first venture after school aged 17 introduced the concept of bio-vaudeville – persuading cinema managements to have live entertainment before the feature film.
Under the mentorship of Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
’s theatre agent Herbert de Leon and in partnership with Basil Rubin he brought to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
variety artists such as Alma Cogan
Alma Cogan
Alma Cogan was an English singer of traditional pop music in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dubbed "The Girl With the Laugh/Giggle/Chuckle In Her Voice", she was the highest paid British female entertainer of her era...
and Dickie Valentine
Dickie Valentine
Dickie Valentine was an English pop singer in the 1950s.-Early life:Valentine was born Richard Maxwell , though Valentine was known as Richard Bryce as his mother later married Bryce and gave her young son the same name. He was born in Marylebone, London...
; eventually adding Russ Conway
Russ Conway
Russ Conway was a British popular music pianist. Conway had 20 piano instrumentals in the UK Singles Chart between 1957 and 1963, including two number one hits.-Career:...
(1964), Peter Nero
Peter Nero
Peter Nero is an American pianist and pops conductor.-Early life:Born in Brooklyn, New York, As Bernard Nierow, Nero started his formal music training at the age of seven. He studied piano under Frederick Bried...
(1966), Shelly Berman, Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse
Cyd Charisse was an American actress and dancer.After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s...
, Tony Martin, Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style. She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.-Biography:...
and Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...
(1967) to his list of luminaries .
His greatest coup was Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
. Aged 20 he sat on the street outside her apartment until curiosity compelled her to invite him in. He signed her to tour in 1965 and again in 1966. They remained friends until her death in 1992 aged 91.
In 1966 he tentatively shifted to the dramatic stage, often bringing entire productions from the West End to South Africa, cast, sets and costumes.
Funding all his own productions he famously claimed that he produced farce and comedy to subsidize less commercial theatre.
Continuing with the successful business formula of signing overseas box-office attractions he brought names like Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold
Hermione Gingold was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on...
from New York for Noel Coward’s "Fallen Angels", Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
for Fredrick Knott’s thriller "Dial M for Murder".
Other names included Barbara Windsor
Barbara Windsor
Barbara Ann Windsor, MBE , better known by her stage name Barbara Windsor, is an English actress. Her best known roles are in the Carry On films and as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders....
, June Whitfield
June Whitfield
June Rosemary Whitfield, CBE is an English actress, well known in the United Kingdom since the 1950s for roles in radio and television comedy series....
and Sir Michael Redgrave.
With rigid censorship laws in South Africa in the 70s and 80s, plays were continually under scrutiny by the law. Ronald Millar’s "Abelard and Heloise" called for a nude scene and actress Heather Lloyd-Jones consented to the demands of the script. Audience curiosity filled houses to capacity. The censorship board were given a dim silhouette of Miss Lloyd-Jones and the play was allowed to continue.
Toerien did not escape more aggressive raids when productions were closed down.
When the word ‘gay’ was still taboo Toerien brought "The Other Side of the Swamp" to the boards. Writer Royce Ryton himself played opposite Eckard Rabe under Graham Armitage’s direction. By running for a year this production broke a South African record.
Writers Ben Travis, Ray Clooney and Alan Ayckbourn became audience favourites; as did Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
.
From the early '80s, British comedy actor and director Rex Garner became associated with Toerien with many box office successes; Ray Cooney's "Out of Order" and "It Runs in the Family", Michael Pertwee's "Birds of Paradise" and Robin Hawdon's "Don't Dress for Dinner".
Since the 70s he has always owned his own theatres. The first, The Intimate, a 235 seater, in partnership with Shirley Firth, was followed by The Barnato and the Andre Huguenot.
In 1980 he saved an old theatre from demolition and opened The Alhambra in Braamfontein, Johannesburg with Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
Amadeus
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
. Refurbishing the old building he added two more theatres to the complex, the Leonard Rayne, opened 18th July 1983, (renamed the Rex Garner in 1994) and the Richard Haines Theatres.
In 1988 he purchased the derelict Alvin Cinema in Camps Bay
Camps Bay
Camps Bay is an affluent suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. In summer it attracts a large number of foreign visitors as well as South Africans looking for a beach holiday. It is renowned for its white sandy beaches fringed by palm trees and has a trendy nightlife.-History:The first residents of...
, Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
and, with designer Jan Corewyn transformed it with a post modern façade draped with a sculptured curtain. He named it Theatre on the Bay. http://www.theatreonthebay.co.za
With the decentralization of Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
's CBD Toerien moved his Alhambra operation to the north of Johannesburg opening Pieter Toerien's Montecasino Theatre complex. Here he runs 2 theatres, one with 320 seats and a studio theatre with 160 seats http://www.montecasinotheatre.co.za
Lining the walls of Toerien's theatres are photographs of the innumerable actors who have worked for him over the years as well as posters of past productions "Sleuth", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Equus", "Amadeus", "Agnes of God", "M Butterfly", "Master Class", "Private Lives", "Stage Struck", "Quartermaine's Terms", "Side By Side With Sondheim".
The works of such eminent British writers as Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
, Simon Gray
Simon Gray
Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
, and Peter Shaffer
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist and playwright, screenwriter and author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
have all been mounted in Toerien’s theatres.
In the '80s, Toerien brought Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s "Tom Foolery" to South Africa. This association has resulted in South Africa receiving many of the phenomenal successes of Macintosh's London musical theatre, Les Misérables
Les Misérables (musical)
Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....
, a co-production with Sir Cameron Mackintosh and Tsogo Sun; Cats
Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
which toured Scandinavia, the Far East and Beirut; The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
The Phantom of the Opera is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux.The music was composed by Lloyd Webber, and most lyrics were written by Charles Hart, with additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe. Alan Jay Lerner was an early collaborator,...
which toured the Far East, ending in Hong Kong. These were followed by The Sleeping Beauty on Ice, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
and Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
, which was originally banned in South Africa as blasphemous after it opened on Broadway in 1971, and which travelled to Athens in 2007.
2007 will see the staging of The Lion King
The Lion King (musical)
The Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice along with the musical score created by Hans Zimmer with choral arrangements by Lebo M. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well...
in a splendid new 1900 seater lyric theatre being especially built by Tsogo Sun at Montecasino in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
. It will be the tenth largest in the world.
Another South African record was set by actor Tim Plewman who in 2006 ended an eight year run of Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman
Defending the Caveman
Defending the Caveman is a comedy written by American actor and comedian Rob Becker about the misunderstandings between men and women. Defending the Caveman has been seen in theaters around the world by more than eight million people in forty-five countries. It has been performed in over thirty...
. Plewman, had given 1500 performances of this one man show.
Toerien has not limited himself to theatre management. During the period of South Africa’s transition he worked extensively with WESTAG Task Group on the Performing Arts sub-committee. In this area of civic responsibility he also gave of his expertise on the CAPAB board to assist them in their adjustment to become Artscape. He was also on the board of the National Arts Council and the Western Cape Cultural Commission.
Bibliography: Just the Ticket, Percy Tucker.
Television documentary: To the Edge by Peter Bode.
The Star Newspaper