... Shaw Refusal SIR, I have little doubt that the letter. Rights in a Play, from the Secretary of the Society of Authors in your current issue was provoked by my failing to obtain a licence to present Mrs. Warren's Profession at Windsor m February before informing a national paper of my intention to do so. Clearly 1 was at fault, but frankly it had not occurred to me that a stop would be put on ...

... Trainee directors Dear Sir, 1 hope you will permit me to reply to Mr. Troeller's irritating letter. There is some evidence in it that he has read my letter in your issue of June 27: but none that he has understood it. My first point was a minor semantic niggle: Mr. Troeller has left it a tangled heap of non sense. His explanation about posts and vacancies scarcely ex plains why (laboriously ...

... SIR. Following the ABC/ Thames TV Director Scheme announcement I am sure 1 will not be alone in my urge to set pen to paper to voice my dismay at what seems to have been the short sightedness of this year's selection board. The scheme is an admirable one. Where else could one possibly get so thorough a grounding in theatre direction in so short a time, except through schemes such as these? But ...

... Merce Cunningham SIR, I agree with your critic's report of the Merce Cunning ham opening performances. Certainly, one tried to understand their electoplasmic or were they surrealist? movements, but in Place (1966) and in Variations V (1%5) this proved impossible. It was easier to understand Nocturnes (1956). This was danced to an accompaniment of quasi-atonal piano music. It was an ...

... The Name SIR, A group of professional actors in any village, town or city have the freedom of choice to cull themselves, and their work, whatever they feel will have the necessary impact on their public. They can be anything from The Olde Barn Workshop Method Group to the Royally Mayfair Pro ductions What makes a professional company is the collective worth of the players. Too many audiences ...

... Post censorship rubbish SIR, We are sorry to see in your Editorial of May 1, that while congratulating John Neville on his new venture at the Fortune, you are attacking the small laboratory theatres that have emerged in the last two or three years for presenting post-censorship rubbish. I do not suppose anybody would try to defend on artistic grounds everything that has been presented at the ...

... The frustrated artist SIR,-- One has every sympathy for .G-Ai. whose frustrations are shared by many of us, both employees and managements. OA1. seems to have overlooked the fact that the profession is very overcrowded and continues to become more overcrowded every year. May I sugge* that GAL. should be a little more understanding of the management's problems and less hasty in accusing them of ...

... Martin Harvey (Miss) Susan Quinn. SIR, I am collecting matcriail for a biography of the late Sir John Martin Harvey, and would be very grateful to any of your readers who could help me in my research by offering personal recollections or other material. Letters or similar documents will be copied and relumed with the utmost care possible. Yours Si nrrriNv I T. W UUUiIUv, Princes Road. ...

... Available for live shows Bryan Hills SIR.-- The directors of the Rank Organisation are to be most enthusiastically congratulated on making the Golders Green Odeon Cinema available for live shows as a replacement for the Golders Green Hippodrome. It is to be hoped that this policy could be made available in other areas where Ranks have cinemas suitable for conversion and theatres have been ...

... Kingston Varlev Thomas, SIR, Mr. Hugh Jenkins' splen did summing-up of the situ ation vis-a-vis local authorities and the Theatre prompts me to report that, after 13 years' steady cam paigning to re-establish live theatre in Kingston-upon-Thames. we have at last succeeded in being represented on the Arts Council Committee recently appointed by die Council. In view of the redevelopment of ...

... Imaginative Michael H. S. Robinson SIR, How gratifying it was to read the remarks of Miss Wallace erf the Thorndike, about the need for imaginative management and recognizing the important factor that the theatre is people. The new theatres that have emerged in the past few years have shown themselves to be successful albeit budgets still tight, because they have recogni zed that the theatre, ...

... Shaw letters Dan H. Laurence SIR, For the Collected Letters of Bernard Shaw, I should be grateful to your readers for the following: 1. Any Shaw correspondence not already reported to me, whether in libraries, in stitutions, or in private hands; 2. Any information con cerning a turn-of-the-century playwright named St. Aubyn Miller, especially the year of his death. 3. The identity of any ...