Thelma Holt
4 January 1932
Producer, retired actress
Patrick Graucob (divorced, 1968) David Pressman (divorced, 1970) Patrick Graucob (remarried, 2011)
After a successful career as an actress, in partnership with Charles Marowitz, Thelma founded the Open Space Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, London,[1] which became the forerunner of the London fringe. In 1977, joined The Round House in Chalk Farm as Artistic and Executive Director.[1] There she instigated a policy of bringing the best of regional theatre to London: Citizens Theatre (Glasgow), Royal Exchange Theatre Company (Manchester), Stephen Joseph Theatre Company, Scarborough.
She gave London the opportunity to see some of the successful productions initiated at the Edinburgh Festival. Other visiting companies included: Josef Szanja (Poland), The Pickle Family Circus (USA), Circus Oz (Australia), Antoine Vitez (France), Rustaveli Theatre Company (Georgia, CIS).
From 1977–83 Holt was artistic director at the Round House.[1] In 1983 The Round House closed and Thelma Holt joined the Theatre of Comedy as executive producer, where she produced Loot by Joe Orton, directed by Jonathan Lynn and starring Leonard Rossiter. (For further information on Holt at both the Open Space and at the Round House, see (Vaulting Ambitions by Jennie Schiele, published in 2004.)
Work with the National Theatre[edit]
In 1985 Holt joined the National Theatre as head of Touring and Commercial Exploitation.[1] She was responsible for the following NT West End transfers: A Chorus of Disapproval, The Petition, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Three Men on a Horse and A View from the Bridge. She was also responsible for major tours of National Theatre productions to: Paris, Vienna, Zurich, North America, Moscow, Tbilisi, Tokyo, Epidavros.
Holt produced INTERNATIONAL 87, a series of four visits to the National Theatre by international theatre companies: The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill directed by Peter Stein (production from the Schaubühne, Berlin), Miss Julie by August Strindberg and Hamlet by William Shakespeare both directed by Ingmar Bergman (Productions from the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm), Macbeth by William Shakespeare and Medea by Euripides both directed by Yukio Ninagawa (the Ninagawa Company from Tokyo), Tomorrow was War by the Mayakovsky Theatre Company from Moscow. For this international season Holt received the Olivier/Observer Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theatre[2] and a special award from Drama Magazine. In 1998 she co-produced The Fairy-Queen by Purcell, directed by Adrian Noble for the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
Thelma Holt produced INTERNATIONAL 89, a second series of four visits to the National Theatre by international theatre companies: Tango Varsoviano by Teatro del Sur (Buenos Aires), Grapes of Wrath by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago), Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov from the Moscow Art Theatre and Suicide for Love the return of the Ninagawa Theatre Company.