As soon as he left school he was on his way to Melbourne; headquarters of Australia's professional theatre production company, JC Williamson.
One of the theatrical companies that toured Australia in those days was the Royal Shakespeare Company from Stratford-on-Avon, which afforded Kevin an invaluable Introduction when he arrived in England seeking employment. Kevin joined the company as it was about to embark on a new venture, which was a season of three plays to be staged the Adelphi Theatre in London. He stayed with the company for a further season when it returned to Stratford then spent a while freelancing on various seasonal productions around England.
Whilst at Stratford he met George Levine who was in the process of forming the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre in London and he invited Kevin to join the company as stage mechanist. He took up the offer and during his time at the Royal Court he worked on original productions of plays such as Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer among others.
Moving to South Africa, he became involved with the Children's Theatre Group working on a production of The Dragon's Daughter, which opened in Soweto in 1958. He went on to work as production stage manager for just about every theatrical management in the country.
In those days there were no independent companies providing set building facilities for the many productions being staged, so Kevin, together with Steve Collins, who was then running the workshops at PACT in Pretoria, decided to open their own company. In partnership with theatre impresarios Hymie Udwin and Dave Levine of Academy Theatre Productions, they opened Scenic & Styling Specialists in 1973 on the site that now houses the Liberty Life in Braamfontein. Two years later, the partnership was dissolved and the company was re-formed with Kevin and Steve continuing the business under the name of KEVCO Studios.
It was the beginning of a new era, Sun International was emerging and Sol Kersner commissioned the two of them, together with set designer Tony Farmer, to create the sets for the Extravaganza shows scheduled for the new Sun City Theatre. Two years later, they were called upon yet again to remodel the Superbowl to stage live events.
By 1989, other companies were beginning to emerge that offered event production as part of their audio-visual production services, one of which was O'mage Productions. Company director Graham Edmunds asked Kevin to join O'mage, where he remained until 2003 when he and colleague Morgan Bevan bought the set construction division from O'mage. They renamed the company the Joburg Set Company and began offering their set building services to the entire industry.
The following year Kevin was honoured for his service to the South African theatre and events industry by the TPSA, when he became the first person to receive a Lifetime Achievement award and was inducted to the TPSA Hall of Fame.
Two years ago, Kevin began to disengage himself from running the operations of the company due to his deteriorating health and retired to his hilltop dream home on the summit of the Westdene Ridge in Johannesburg. Kevin is survived by his son Andrew, his daughter Kate, who lives in Australia and two grandchildren.
(Jim Evans)
