Black, Dorothy 1914-2006

(Dorothy Albertyn, Kitty Black)

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born April 30, 1914, in Johannesburg, South Africa; died December 26, 2006. Agent, translator, and author. One of the most respected theatrical agents in Britain, Black was an influential figure in West End productions who worked with such prominent actors as John Gielgud and Margaret Rutherford, and playwrights such as Christopher Fry, Arthur Miller, and Jean Cocteau. She got her start at the H.M. Tennent agency in London, the most prominent agency in the country. Hired as a secretary in 1937, she worked her way up to assistant administrator of the nonprofit branch of Tennent’s called the Company of Four. She helped run the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith for eight years before leaving Tennent in 1953. Black then became a full-time agent. She worked for Curtis Brown for the remainder of the 1950s, then for Granada Television from 1961 to 1963. During the mid-1960s she was in the drama department for Associated-Rediffusion. Her last working years were spent at London’s MacOwan Theatre, where she was house manager from 1976 to 1986. In addition to working closely with actors, writers, and directors, Black was herself an active translator of plays. Under the pseudonym Kitty Black, she adapted works by Jean-Paul Sartre, Fritz Hochwälder, Georges Simenon, Jean Anouilh, and others. She also penned three original plays:The Prince of Bohemia (1942), Landslide (1943), written with David Peel, and The Singing Dolphin (1963), written with Beverley Cross.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES

BOOKS

Black, Dorothy, Upper Circle, a Theatrical Chronicle, Methuen (London, England), 1984.

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), January 12, 2007, p. 61.