Dorothy Tenham

After living with vascular dementia she died on 15 February 2008 and is buried in Fonab Cemetery in Pitlochry. Her gravestone declares "She changed the face of professional theatre practice. Her influence lives on."

Tenham directed the course for 21 years before retiring in poor health in 1976. On her retirement she counted herself "among the fortunate who have enjoyed a career in theatre during a rather quiet revolution which has slowly turned the work of backstage staff from a semi-amateur labour of goodwill into a decent career requiring certain standards of efficiency for its survival." She moved to Scotland where she ran the box office at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre for five years. She was awarded a Stage Management Association special award in 1989 for her pioneering work in stage management training.

Tenham's course began slowly and tentatively in 1956 with just one student, but it grew steadily over the next few years, training up to six students at any one time. These students graduated as industry-level professionals after three or four terms, depending on aptitude. In 1962 Tenham was finally able to launch formally her Stage Management Course at RADA, the first new course to be introduced since the academy started operation almost 60 years before. Tenham's "tenacious and inspiring personality" and her "irrepressible and often irreverent good humour" resulted in a good–natured, energetic and intensive course, with about six new students starting each term, who graduated after four terms of theoretical and practical work. As well as the standard work of stage management – supervising rehearsals, managing the company and running productions – the course included training in stage-crewing, carpentry, set construction and painting, lighting, sound, costume, design, and the construction and sourcing of props. Students were also introduced to simple make–up, voice, movement and acting classes, box office accounting, safety and health, the history of theatre and a basic understanding of art, music, engineering, and sociology. As well as a handful of resident tutors Tenham brought in freelance teachers who excelled in their various fields and were experienced in working in the professional theatre.

In 1955 John Fernald left the Arts Theatre to become Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), taking over from the long-established Principal Sir Kenneth Barnes. Tenham went with Fernald to the academy as his SM but on the understanding that she could set up a training course for stage managers.

By 1952 Tenham had moved to London and, with a gift for comedy, was appearing in a number of plays in repertory at the Arts Theatre in the West End, having been cast by the theatre's manager and producer John Fernald. As was common in repertory theatre in the early 1950s, minor actors were also employed as assistant stage managers and it was in that task that Tenham found her métier and abandoned acting, becoming the Arts Theatre's resident stage manager (SM).

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 technical colleges.

Tenham was born in Southport, Lancashire on 1 April 1931 to Walter Swettenham, a master baker and confectioner, and Ethel Swettenham, a prominent local producer of amateur theatre. She was educated in Southport. At the age of 15 she was playing roles in amateur drama in the town and the wider locality and receiving good reviews.