Roy Hart Theatre

Roy Hart (born on Oct. 30th, 1926, died May 18 1975) was an actor from South Africa at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He was a pupil of Alfred Wolfsohn's for many years and then furthered the work on voice after Wolfsohn's death. Hart's vocal range and virtuosity led composers (Stockhausen, Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies, et al.) to write musical works specifically for his voice. Hart founded the Roy Hart Theatre in 1968 and developed the Roy Hart Theatre approach, which is still taught and practised in the south of France at Malérargues and around the world today.

Hart was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1926. He studied psychology and English at University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where he emerged as a gifted actor, and gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. At R.A.D.A. he was a successful student, yet felt "that the characters I performed so convincingly were merely figments of my imagination ... something was lacking". His chance meeting with Alfred Wolfsohn was decisive, he abandoned a promising career in 'West-End' theatre to study with Wolfsohn, and did not perform in public for the next seventeen years. He emerged in 1969 to a period of intense international artistic and psycho-therapeutic activity, including solo performances in Henze's Versuch über Schweine, Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King, Stockhausen's Spirale and Euripides' The Bacchae performed with his own company. He was a guest speaker at psycho-therapeutic and theatre congresses throughout the world; Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook held discussions with him in his studio in London. In 1972, he began to perform as an actor with his own company which at that time had grown to more than forty members. The Theatre company took up residence in the south of France in 1974. Roy Hart died in a car accident while on tour in May 1975.

The Roy Hart Theatre

• 1967: The Roy Hart Speakers become the Roy Hart Theatre. Work begins on the Bacchae, performed at the Festival of Nancy in 1969. Also the year of Hart’s solo in Stockhausen’s Spirale and Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King.

• 1971: Roy Hart performs Hans Werner Henze’s Versuch über Schweine. The Theatre performs The Singer and the Song, pieces exploring sound and movement only, later invited as And to the Théâtre des Nations, Paris, by Jean-Louis Barrault in 1972. Roy Hart performs his solo Biodrame by Serge Béhar.

• 1973: With a return to the word, RHT performs Mariage de Lux by Serge Béhar (in French) and Ich Bin by Paul Pörtner (in German) in London. House hunting begins with the idea of the group living and working together.

• 1974: Château de Malérargues is discovered offering correct facilities and good access for travel around Europe. In July, the move begins with the first seven members leaving London. The rewriting begins of Serge Béhar’s Café de Flora renamed L'Economiste.

• 1975: Roy Hart arrives at Malérargues in February. Rehearsals begin in earnest, interspersed with local performances of songs, hymns and texts in the Protestant churches of the region. First performance of L’Economiste in Alès in April. Late April, Roy Hart and the cast leave on tour. On 18 May, after performances in Austria and en route for Spain, Roy Hart, Dorothy Hart and Vivienne Young are killed in a fatal car crash near Nice. A few days later, they are buried in Malérargues.

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Hart 1/11-10