Foco Novo Theatre Company Collection

Description

The Foco Novo archive collection consists of the following:


1) minutes, correspondence and papers from meetings concerning various aspects of the company, its finance, funding and productions;


2) production scripts;


3) production slides and related material;


4) production posters and advertising material;


5) staff and actor information.


The collection has been arranged into four series. See the attached handlist under the media tab.

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Biography or history

Foco Novo was a pioneering and innovative fringe theatre company in the 1970s and 1980s. Funded by the Arts Council, it was founded in 1972 by director Roland Rees, writer Bernard Pomerance and administrator David Aukin, who also co-founded the Joint Stock Theatre Company in 1974. Around this core, actors were cast at Equity rates, for each new production. Its objective was to encourage new writing and new work in the theatre, employing writers in residence such as Tunde Ikoli and accepting unsolicited manuscripts.


The name Foco Novo, literally meaning new focus, classed itself as an alternative British theatre company, who saw a way forward as being a form of theatre that achieved a more significant integration of aesthetics and political commitment. It worked in both London and the English Regions, in traditional theatres and as well as in community centres, art centres, schools and colleges.


Its first play was the eponymous 'Foco Novo', looking at American involvement in South America. The first performances were played in a garage and on a street in Chalk Field. This was followed by Bertolt Brecht’s 'Drums in the Night' at the 1973 Edinburgh Festival followed by Pomerance’s 'Someone Else is Still Someone', Fassbinder’s 'Cock Artist', 'Arthur Horner' by Phil Woods and 'Death of a Black Man' by Alfred Fagon. In 1976/77 they toured Brecht’s 'A Man’s A Man' as well as Jon Chadwick and John Hoyland’s 'The Nine Days' and 'Saltley Gates'. In the summer of 1976 they commissioned Adrian Mitchell to write 'A Seventh Man' from the book by John Berger, which toured throughout England, Wales and the Netherlands.


In Spring 1977, Chadwick and Hoyland were again commissioned to create 'Tighten Your Belts', followed in late 1977 by Pomerance’s 'The Elephant Man'. 'Withdrawal Symptoms' followed in early 1978, at the ICA, and then 'On the Out' by Tunde Ikoli at the Bush Theatre, London. From November 1978, 'The Free Fall' by Colin Mortimer was toured and played at the ICA. This was followed by Mustapha Matura’s 'Independence' in early 1979.


Foco Novo’s policy was to encourage and nurture new playwrights, for example C. P. Taylor, Howard Brenton and Tunde Ikole, to name a few. Foco Novo thrived during the early 1970s, seeing enormous success with Pomerance’s original version of 'The Elephant Man', commissioned and first performed in 1977, touring the UK before the play was produced with enormous success in New York.


However, following the general election of 1979, changes to Arts Council funding policy meant that theatre companies where obliged to find half their income from non-subsidy sources. This had a devastating effect on Foco Novo, which had received revenue funding from the Council for some time, since, as Roland Rees himself stated, it would not conform to the new priorities. As a consequence of these changes, the company was wound up in 1988.


For more information, see Margaret Eddershaw 'Performing Brecht', 1996, and D. Keith Peacock 'Thatchers Theatre: British theatre and drama in the eighties', 1999.

Provenance

The papers were acquired with the assistance of Professor Philip Roberts of the School of English in June 2001.

Access and usage

Reproduction

Access

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