Thelma Holt

Thelma Holt CBE

Thelma Holt, in partnership with Charles Marowitz, founded the Open Space Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, which became a forerunner of the London fringe. In 1977, she joined the Round House in Chalk Farm as Artistic and Excutive Director. In 1985 Thelma Holt joined the National Theatre as Head of Touring and Commercial Exploitation. She was responsible for the following West End transfers: A Chorus of Disapproval, The Petition, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Three Men on a Horse, 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, and Epidaurus.

Thelma 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 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 Thelma Holt received the Olivier/Observer Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theatre and a special award from Drama Magazine. Holt was awarded the 2018 Sam Wanamaker Award, by Shakespeare’s Globe, for producing and touring many award-winning Shakespeare productions. Her productions include The Merchant of Venice with Dustin Hoffman, Hamlet with Alan Rickman and Much Ado About Nothing, starring Mark Rylance and Janet McTeer. As associate producer of the Royal Shakespeare Company, she also toured productions of Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Co-productions with the RSC in the West End include The Taming of the Shrew, and associate producer of Imperium.