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________________________________________________________________________ A Stage Struck Man
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Donald Auty was born in 1937. He became stage struck when he first visited a touring pantomime at the Dewsbury Empire in 1942 and is still stage struck in 2003. He spent most of his schooldays and youth in Blackpool with his Uncle Jack Taylor who was a great Northern Producer of Summer Seasons Touring Revues and Pantomimes who trained him in all aspects of theatre. He then went on to stage and company manage top class tours pantos and summer seasons throughout the British Isles for the top managements of the day. He went to Beirut in the late sixties and was chief of production at the famed Casino Du Liban for four years. At this time this was the most spectacular revue venue in the world with all the shows mounted in Paris and then transferring to the Casino. When civil war loomed in Beirut he came back to England in the early seventies and went back to work with Moss Empires who had worked for previously. At the time they were co-producing a tour of West Side Story with a young producer who had appeared in Coronation Street called Bill Kenwright. Moss Empires at this time were running down their production department and he joined Bill Kenwright as production manager and remained there for eight years. In the late seventies he went to Paris to work with Bernard Hilda on tours of musicals and top revues in Europe and the middle East. He was responsible for the last British tour of a Paris Lido Show starring the Blue Bell Girls in 1980 called Hullo Paris. He returned to the U.K. in the mid eighties and was involved in running the Light Entertainment,Summer show and Pantomime Division of Barry Clay man Concerts and Apollo Leisure. During this time he was general manager for all stage shows starring Michael Barrymore and producer for Pantomimes starring him at the Dominion theatre in London and the Opera House Manchester. Also Summer Seasons in Scarborough and Bournemouth. When the bottom fell out of summer seasons in the late nineties and pantomime runs became restricted he went back to Paris and still works from there and from home in England as consultant with tours of Eastern European Companies to Western Europe though he is now freelance and tries to work no more than six months of the year. He does a great deal of writing about theatre as you can see from this Web site and also about his hobby Railways. He is at present working on a spy novel based around the war time variety in Europe and the U.K He is available from time to time as an after dinner speaker and can organise variety weekend seminars in most districts of the U.K. with visits to theatres and famous sites of theatres and where variety artistes lived and spent their social lives. He can also take groups of people on pre arranged variety walks in London and the provinces. If you want to avail yourself of any of these please Email him here or use the Contact Page on this site. He is still stage struck and intends to continue being so for a number of years yet. He is a great supporter of this web site and congratulates Matthew Lloyd on launching it. Also by Donald Auty on this site: |
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