Gypsy, His Majesty's Theatre, Johannesburg, Souvenir Theatrical Programme, 1975, large format, illustrated, multipage, condition: very good.
Joan Brickhill and Louis Burke staged Gypsy starring Libby Morris, Kim Braden and Bonnie Langford in 1975.
The actress, Bonnie Langford , starred in the Brickhill-Burke production of Gypsy t as Baby June, a role she had played on Broadway and the West End.
Libby Morris is a Canadian singer, comedienne and actress. She appeared in several CBC radio shows of the 1950s and moved into TV and film from the 1960s onward after she moved to London, England. She became a very well known theatre actor and cabaret performer as well as starring in her own TV show.
Joan Brickhill (1924 2014) was a South African actress and choreographer who worked in radio, theatre, film, and television. Together with her husband, Louis Burke, she founded Brickhill-Burke Productions, which produced Meet Me in St. Louis on Broadway in 1990 and received four Tony Award nominations, including Best Choreography for Brickhill. Brickhill was a child prodigy, making her stage debut at two. She later worked as a drama teacher. Her first feature film was Nor the Moon by Night (1958), in which she played the leading role, Harriet Carver. Follow That Rainbow (1979) was her second feature film. She directed and presented, with her husband, Louis Burke, the first South African play in KwaZulu-Natal to be performed for multiracial audiences. She also worked as an executive entertainment producer at Sun City.
Louis Burke was a South African theatre actor, director, producer, writer, impresario and Shakespeare expert. He went on, alongside his Durban-born wife, Brickhall, to appear in, direct and tour with many landmark productions, a highlight of his career being his direction of the 1989 Broadway production of the musical Meet Me in St Louis. That production was choreographed by Brickhill. During their years together, the Brickhill-Burke team produced such stage successes as Oklahoma, Hello Dolly, Barnum, Annie, Mame, Theyre Playing Our Song, The Sound of Music, Follies Fantastique, Gypsy and a number of Sun City extravaganzas. Their hit plays included I Love My Wife, The Last of the Red Hot Lovers and The Norman Conquests.
Burke was also known for the movies Follow That Rainbow (1979) and Van Kerslig Tot Kollig (1982).
His Majesty's Theatre, Johannesburg, was opened as part of a neo-Baroque double-storey building on a stand bounded by Fox, Joubert and Commissioner streets in Johannesburg in 1903. The venue was acquired by I.W. Schlesinger and his African Theatres Trust in 1917, to serve as an influential theatre and film venue till 1937, when the entire building was demolished to make way for a much larger new art deco building, containing the new His Majesty's Theatre (opened in 1946). In 1956 it was converted to serve exclusively as a film venue with the latest technology, often used for for blockbuster productions. It opened with Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments in 1956, followed by shows like Around The World In 80 Days, Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, My Fair Lady and many others. In 1978 it was leased by the Brickhill-Burke Company, who used it as a venue for live stage shows once more. The last theatre production to be staged here was their production of Hello Dolly! in 1980-1981, after which it was converted to shops and offices
