About: Dorothy Tenham

Dorothy Tenham, born Dorothy Swettenham, (1 April 1931 – 15 February 2008) was an English actor and stage manager who became a pioneering teacher of technical theatre. In the mid-1950s she established, against much opposition, the first course in the United Kingdom for training stage managers and other theatre technicians, and in so doing played a crucial role in the formalisation of technical theatre practice. At the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London she trained many students who were to become the UK's leading stage managers, as well as those students who later flourished in other theatrical craft disciplines or elsewhere in the creative arts. Her course informed the industry and set the standard for all subsequent theatrical technical training in drama schools, universities and te