Rhoda Mary Felgate MBE (1901 – 1990) was an Australian speech and drama teacher and theatre director. She founded the Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane in 1936.
Rhoda Felgate | |
|---|---|
.jpg) in 1932 | |
| Born | Rhoda Mary Felgate 31 July 1901 Stoke Newington, England |
| Died | 14 September 1990 Auchenflower, Queensland, Australia |
| Nationality | Australia |
| Occupation(s) | speech therapist and theatre director |
| Successor | Joan Whalley |
Life
editFelgate was born in Stoke Newington in 1901. Her parents were Alice Maude (born Willson) and her husband Gordon Felgate and they emigrated to Australia while she was still a baby. Her father travelled as a company representative. They made their home in Brisbane in 1910 where she attended Brisbane Girls Grammar School.[1]
The Twelfth Night Players was an amateur group founded by Felgate. It was named "Twelfth Night" because it intended to perform of the twelfth night of every month.[2] Felgate had directed many plays for the Brisbane Repertory Theatre Society. A society that was for advanced performers. Felgate believed that, with her teaching skills, she could found a new company for improving amateurs who would perform important plays. When it started performing, the company consisted of only a dozen or more amateur actors.[3]
The Twelfth Night company first performed in March 1936 at the Empire Chambers.[2] In the first three years of the company, it staged 21 different plays including works by the British playwrights J. M. Barrie, A. A. Milne and J. B. Priestley.[1]
Felgate travelled abroad in 1939 and in 1947. In the 1940s Twelfth Night Theatre performed many plays new to Australia which Felgate was able to source including John Van Druten's I Remember Mama, Shaw's 1939 play In Good King Charles's Golden Days, Krasna's 1944 play Dear Ruth and the eponymous Gas Light.[1]
In 1948 the company found its first location in a large building on Wickham Terrace where it occupied two floors; the upper for play rehearsal and the lower for teaching. In 1955, Felgate became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In the following year the company obtained a church hall on Wickham Terrace named Gowrie Hall which became their small theatre. Felgate appeared in another showing of I Remember Mama before retiring from the company in 1962. She continued her association as its Patron[1] while Joan Whalley took over as the artistic director of Twelfth Night Theatre.[2]
Felgate died in 1990 in Auchenflower, Queensland.[1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e Radbourne, Jennifer, "Felgate, Rhoda Mary (1901–1990)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 18 September 2023
- ^ a b c "Twelfth Night Theatre (Brisbane, Qld.) - Fryer Library Manuscripts". manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
- ^ Austlit. "Twelfth Night Theatre - Introduction: Rhoda Felgate and Foundations | AustLit". www.austlit.edu.au. Retrieved 18 September 2023.