Under his watch, the Romany was renamed the Guignol. Around the same time, Frank Fowler came to UK to teach in the English Department. Sax left UK toward the end of the 1920’s. Carol Sax began teaching in the Art Department, where he organized a theatre which he called the Romany Theatre, located in an African American church near campus. The first phase was organized by the English Department, which began offering more courses in drama and oral interpretation. The theatrical excitement that the Strollers had occasioned in the community developed in phases into the Guignol Theatre. The impetus for creating the Guignol came from the student group the "Strollers," who produced their first play in 1910.īy the 1920s, the Little Theatre Movement had taken hold across the country, causing theatres to sprout everywhere. The first Guignol Theatre, named after the popular Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris, was built on the University of Kentucky campus in 1927. Booked by: UK Department of Theatre & Dance. ![]() Way back in 1962, in one of the earliest discussions on the future of the group, we saw that there were three “poisons” that were responsible for the death of theatre groups worldwide: star complexes, non-transparency in finance and accounts and personality-centred organization and management. The conduct of affairs has always been professional, with best practices in organization and management brought into all that the group did. With every likelihood of a long and happy lifespan ahead. The difference, it seems, is in a simple fact that BLT is a participation-organization and, therefore, a genuine theatre community. Old-timers of BLT have often been asked the secret of the group’s long life when, in contrast, we see hundreds of cases of groups starting with a bang and dropping by the wayside in a couple of years. Over the years we have become deeply involved in training, education, outreach programmes and a range of developmental activities. BLT is admired for the quality of its productions, setting benchmarks for many other theatres in Bangalore. With over 200 plays performed, the group has certainly been productive…and creative. Plays that the Bangalore public looks forward to watching. And it continues to be known widely as a group that performs plays. The first production on stage in December 1960 was Moliere’s The Prodigious Snob, more commonly known as ‘The Would-be Gentleman’. Collectively, the group had a united vision of a Community Theatre best described by a slogan invented 25 years later: Think Globally, Act Locally.īangalore Little Theatre came into existence with a play reading in the first week of September 1960. ![]() They were the founders of what was to grow into Bangalore Little Theatre. ![]() Scott Tod was a trained director and Margaret a trained actress, both from the Little Theatre movement in the UK. The group comprised a mix of active theatre enthusiasts: three British couples (one being the talented Scott and Margaret Tod) a Dutch couple an American couple an Indian engineer with a European wife, and, of course, many Indians. It was theatre for the love of the theatre, and the love of the theatre held it together as a large, happy family.Ī small group of committed persons in Bangalore sought a theatre experience that could be a genuine alternative to the prevailing order. These features gave BLT a good part of the character it maintained over many years. There was no income for any member from any of the group’s activities then. It functioned with an amateur, non-commercial status. BLT got going in 1960 as a membership-driven organization.
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