Marjorie Lynette Sigley

Marjorie Lynette Sigley (22 December 1928 – 13 August 1997), also known as Sigi, was an English artist, writer, actress, teacher, choreographer, theatre director and television producer. She was instrumental in establishing, developing and promoting forms of youth theatre and television in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Life and work Marjorie Sigley was born on 22 December 1928, known to everyone as "Sigi", she took arts and would travel distances to see a play, a ballet, or an opera. But she also believed in art as an educational force, and her achievement lay in pioneering the same attitude towards children's drama. Sigley not only introduced thousands of children to what she called "the wonder of theatre", she also involved them directly in the making of it.

Sigley came from "a solid, very traditional" working-class family in Buxton, Derbyshire, where her father worked for ICI and her mother was a professional cook. From the age of 10, she became an avid consumer of movies and plays, going to everything that was staged at the Buxton repertory theatre. As a student she attended Goldsmiths College, London, studying theatre, music and dance.

She returned to London to a teaching career, which she combined with her drama activities. At Markfield and Woodlands Park Schools in North London, she began by adapting stage classics for performance by young children who mostly come from underprivileged backgrounds. The children were also encouraged to write, cast, design, produce and star in their own productions. In 1960, Marjorie founded the City Literary Drama Company. This presented its own work, ranging from original pantomimes to experimental mime and movement workshops at the City Lit Theatre, with people such as Ronald Smith Wilson, Claud Newman, and Dorothea Alexander. In 1968 the company visited Warsaw, Leningrad and Moscow with its children's drama programmes.

She had also taken the step into television in 1964 when she was invited to demonstrate what children's drama could achieve in a late-night ABC programme. Her contribution, which graphically demonstrated how the potentially destructive energies of teenage boys in a London suburb could be channelled creatively, made a profound impression. She was busy in television thereafter, one of her most striking contributions being Wonderworld, two 13-part series in which children in the 5–6 and 15–16 age groups, dramatised and acted stories from the Bible.

America

In 1968, the American actress Uta Hagen watched one of Sigley's workshops at the Roundhouse and was so impressed by its revolutionary methods she invited her to New York. There Marjorie directed plays at the renowned Herbert Berghof (H.B.) Studios, Bank Street, New York, and also founded the Young People's Theater at City Center, which she directed from 1969 to 1975 where, with a group of actors, she wrote and staged 45 plays for children, as well as directing workshops involving them in the creation and performance of their own shows. In 1970 the Prime Minister Edward Heath gave a speech supporting and praising Marjorie's youth theatre work. Also around this time (1971–1974) she became friends with Lucy Kroll, the founder and grande dame of Kroll Agency. Correspondence between Sigley and Kroll is held in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C..

She remained in the United States for several years more, founding and running her own company, Sigley's Young People's Theatre in New York in 1976, before moving to Los Angeles the following year to write a screenplay. She also directed an opera for the Brighton Festival. In 1978 she wrote the award-winning ABC special One of a Kind, and in 1980 wrote and co-produced the feature film Never Never Land.

Another writer of the series, Grant Cathro corroborated:

Lee and I first met in a South London rehearsal room, where five frantic grinning actors were hurriedly trying to learn their parts in comedy sketches which Lee and I had been commissioned to write independently. The show was called "Words, Words, Words" (or as it became affectionately known, "Worst, Worst, Worst"), the brainchild of Marjorie Sigley, Head of Children's Programmes at Thames TV. She was trying to disguise education-based material as pure light entertainment, which seemed quite an interesting challenge. Other writers were involved too, but somehow Lee and I became the main contributors and so we began seeing a lot of each other's work at the following readthroughs. I thought Lee's stuff was annoyingly good, and he thought my stuff was irritatingly splendid, so when Lee was later given the go-ahead to develop a comedy-drama which shared similar aspirations to the one-off "Words" series, he rang and asked if I would like to collaborate. Up until this time I had trained and worked mostly as an actor (Glasgow Citizens Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Royal Shakespeare Company) but because I also loved writing (and had a tax bill to pay) I immediately said "certainly". Marjorie died of cancer aged 68 on 13 August 1997.

In 1999 a play Marjorie adapted was posthumously published in an anthology of festive plays. The Mummers' play was originally adapted by Marjorie for presentation by students and faculty of the H.B. Studio, a theatre school in New York City as a holiday gift to their families and friends. The play begins as men of the village arrive in the local tavern to be cast in an amateur production of St. George and the Dragon. Silliness reigns as the participants are cast in their roles for a variety of reasons—none of which have anything to do with talent. The second act is the performance of the play, granting "real" actors an opportunity to play wonderfully broad and physical comedy. The play does require a large cast of eighteen or more. All action takes place within the confines of the village hall, with minimal props. This script offers an excellent opportunity for ensemble work. It does require the cast to sing, but great musical skill is not a necessity.

Work

Art exhibitions:

Footstool Gallery, St John Smith Square, London

Books:

Three Harlequin Plays (1961) Saint George and the dragon at Christmas tide (anonymous) adapted by Marjorie Sigley in Swortzell, L. (eds) The twelve plays of Christmas (1999)

Plays:

Take A Fable (1976) Writer A Review in Mime and Movement – Director (London Theatre Company/Russia and Poland) The Stoppers (1967) – Director (performed as part of the Brighton Festival at the Palace Pier theatre) Timesneeze (1970) Director

Film:

Georgy Girl (1966) choreographer Never Never Land (1979) Screenwriter (also known as Second to the Right and Straight on Until Morning) The Flowering Eye (1979) Screenwriter The Jumble

Television:

One Of A Kind – (1978) writer & associate director Five O'Clock Funfair (1965) presenter London Line (1968) Algy And Worthing Catch Us If You Can C.A.B. (1986–1989) Executive Producer Danger – Marmalade At Work! (1984) producer Educating Marmalade producer Wonderworld T-Bag (1985–1992) Executive producer What's in a Game