Yvonne Brewster

{{Short description|Jamaican actress and businesswoman (born 1938)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Yvonne Brewster

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE}}

| birth_name = Yvonne Clarke

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1938|10|07|df=y}}

| birth_place = Kingston, Jamaica

| occupation = {{hlist|Actress|theatre director|writer}}

| known for = Co-founder of Talawa Theatre Company

| education = {{Hlist|Rose Bruford College|Royal Academy of Music}}

}}

Yvonne Jones Brewster {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE}} ({{née|Clarke}}; born 7 October 1938) is a Jamaican actress, theatre director and writer. She co-founded the theatre companies Talawa in the UK and the Barn in Jamaica. From 2000 to 2001, she portrayed Ruth Harding in the BBC television soap opera Doctors.

Early and personal life

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a upper-middle-class family,[http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/yvonne_brewster.html "Yvonne Brewster OBE"], 100 Great Black Britons, Every Generation. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061010115501/http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/yvonne_brewster.html |date=10 October 2006 }}. Brewster said she was inspired to become an actress at the age of 16, when her father took her to the Ward Theatre "to see a French play, called Huis Clos, written by Jean Paul Sartre. And in it was Mona Chin, who I thought looked just like me. She was fantastic. I looked at this woman and I said, 'Hey, Daddy, I want to be like her.{{'"}}{{cite magazine|publisher=MEP Publishers|title=Yvonne Brewster: 'I only do what I want to do now'|magazine=Caribbean Beat Magazine|issue=65|date=January–February 2004|url=https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-65/i-only-do-what-i-want-do-now#axzz7UYEFSc72|first=Nazma|last=Muller|access-date=28 May 2022|archive-date=2 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002090259/https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-65/i-only-do-what-i-want-do-now#axzz7UYEFSc72|url-status=live}} In 1956, Brewster went to the UK to study drama at Rose Bruford College – where she was the UK's first Black woman drama student,Reade, Simon (23 August 1992), [https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19920823&id=ALFUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YJADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5629,1511141 "Pioneer with a vision of black theatre"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108081615/https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19920823&id=ALFUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YJADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5629,1511141&hl=en |date=8 November 2020 }}, New Straits Times. being told on her first day that she was unlikely to find theatrical work in Britain – and also attended the Royal Academy of Music, receiving a distinction in drama and mime.[http://historicalgeographies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/biography-yvonne-brewster.html "Biography – Yvonne Brewster"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304191825/http://historicalgeographies.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/biography-yvonne-brewster.html |date=4 March 2016 }}, Historical Geographies, 14 September 2011.

She married after returning to England from Jamaica in 1971, and she and her husband now live in Florence, Italy.

Career

Brewster returned to Jamaica to teach drama and in 1965, she co-founded (with Trevor Rhone) the Barn in Kingston, Jamaica's first professional theatre company.Notes on contributors, in Geoffrey V. Davis, Anne Fuchs (eds), Staging New Britain: Aspects of Black and South Asian British Theatre Practice, Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2006, p. 337. Upon her return to England in the early 1970s,{{cite news |last1=Thompson |first1=Tosin |title=Yvonne Brewster: 'I wasn't going to faff around the edges of the fringe' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/mar/02/yvonne-brewster-talawa-theatre |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=2 March 2021 |date=2 March 2021}} she worked extensively in radio, television, and directing for stage productions, including starring in Maybury for the BBC in 1981.{{cite web |title=Maybury |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/1e29a9474c934f588d39570c0eb4c6b3 |publisher=BBC |access-date=8 April 2025 |archive-date=27 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220727222338/https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/1e29a9474c934f588d39570c0eb4c6b3 |url-status=live }} Between 1982 and 1984, she was Drama Officer at the Arts Council of Great Britain.

In 1985, she co-founded Talawa Theatre Company with Mona Hammond, Carmen Munroe and Inigo Espejel,[http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/b/history-of-black-and-asian-performance-in-britain/ "Black & Asian Performance in Britain 1970 onwards – Talawa Theatre Company"]. V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum). using funding from the Greater London Council, then led by Ken Livingstone. Brewster was Talawa's artistic director until 2003,{{cite news|first=Nosheen |last=Iqbal|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/may/29/talawa-theatre-company-25th-anniversary |title=Talawa theatre company: the fights of our lives|newspaper=The Guardian|date= 29 May 2011}} directing a production of C. L. R. James's play The Black Jacobins in 1986 at the Riverside Studios as the first play to be staged by the black-led company, with Norman Beaton in the principal role of Toussaint L'Ouverture.Brewster, Yvonne, [https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/directing-the-black-jacobins "Directing The Black Jacobins"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210926231734/https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/directing-the-black-jacobins |date=26 September 2021 }}, Discovering Literature: 20th century, British Library, 7 September 2017). Retrieved 21 February 2019. Another landmark came in 1991, when Brewster directed the first all-black production of William Shakespeare`s Antony and Cleopatra, starring Doña Croll and Jeffery Kissoon.[http://www.talawa.com/articles/antony-cleopatra-a-theatre-first "Antony & Cleopatra: A Theatre First"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207031620/http://www.talawa.com/articles/antony-cleopatra-a-theatre-first |date=7 February 2019 }}, Talawa, 1991. Brewster then became a patron of the Clive Barker Centre for Theatrical Innovation.[http://theatrefutures.org.uk/clive-barker-centre-for-theatrical-innovation/2012/07/12/patron-yvonne-brewster/ "Patron of the Clive Barker Centre – Yvonne Brewster OBE"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328093319/http://theatrefutures.org.uk/clive-barker-centre-for-theatrical-innovation/2012/07/12/patron-yvonne-brewster/ |date=28 March 2019 }}, Clive Barker Centre for Theatrical Innovation.

From 2000 to 2001, Brewster portrayed Ruth Harding on the BBC television soap opera Doctors. Her character, a nurse, departed from the series unexpectedly after Brewster suffered a heart illness in real life. In 2004, Brewster published her memoirs, entitled The Undertaker’s Daughter: The Colourful Life of a Theatre Director (Arcadia Books).{{Cite journal|last=Scafe|first=Suzanne|date=2009-12-01|title=The Embracing 'I': Mothers and Daughters in Contemporary Black Women's Auto/biography|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09574040903285750|journal=Women: A Cultural Review|volume=20|issue=3|pages=287–298|doi=10.1080/09574040903285750|s2cid=161460788 |issn=0957-4042}} She has also edited five collections of plays, including Black Plays (Methuen Publishing, 1987, {{ISBN|978-0413157102}}), Barry Reckord's For the Reckord (Oberon Books, 2010)[https://archive.today/20130203221149/http://www.talawa.com/news.php?nid=270 "Yvonne Brewster - Reckord Celebrations"], News - Talawa Theatre Company, 7 September 2012. and Mixed Company: Three Early Jamaican Plays, published by Oberon Books in 2012.[http://www.bruford.ac.uk/news/rbc-fellow-yvonne-brewster-obe-edits-new-jamaican-play-anthology.aspx "RBC Fellow Yvonne Brewster OBE edits new Jamaican play anthology"], Rose Bruford College, 9 August 2012. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328093323/https://www.bruford.ac.uk/news/rbc-fellow-yvonne-brewster-obe-edits-new-jamaican-play-anthology.aspx |date=28 March 2019 }}. In 2018, she published Vaulting Ambition: Jamaica's Barn Theatre 1966–2005.[https://jamaicatradingnetwork.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/vaulting-ambition/ "Vaulting ambition"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190327202124/https://jamaicatradingnetwork.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/vaulting-ambition/ |date=27 March 2019 }}, JamaicaTradingNetwork, 31 March 2018.

Awards and recognition

In the 1993 New Year Honours, Brewster was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).UK list: {{London Gazette |issue=53153 |date=31 December 1992 |pages=10 |supp=1}} In 2001, she was granted an honorary doctorate from the Open University.

Brewster received a living legend award from the National Black Theatre Festival in 2001. Brewster then featured on the 2003 list of 100 Great Black Britons.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/into-the-limelight-at-last-search-begins-for-the-hundred-greatest-black-britons-of-all-time-89421.html?r=92715|title=Into the limelight at last: search begins for the hundred greatest black Britons of all time|first=Ian|last=Burrell|newspaper=The Independent|date=2 October 2003|archive-date=28 May 2022|access-date=28 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220528093143/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/into-the-limelight-at-last-search-begins-for-the-hundred-greatest-black-britons-of-all-time-89421.html?r=92715|url-status=live}} In 2005, the University of London's Central School of Speech and Drama conferred an honorary fellowship on Brewster in acknowledgement of her involvement in the development of British theatre. In 2013, she was named one of the BBC's 100 Women.[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-24579511 "100 Women: Who took part?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102115504/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-24579511 |date=2 January 2017 }} BBC News, 22 November 2013.

Selected bibliography

The Undertaker's Daughter: The Colourful Life of a Theatre Director (BlackAmber/Arcadia Books, 2004, {{ISBN|978-1901969245}})
Vaulting Ambition: Jamaica’s Barn Theatre 1965–2005 (Peepal Tree Press, 2017, {{ISBN|9781845233600}})