Backstage with Margot Fonteyn and the Bumptious Colonial

About the Artists

Robin Haig, Performer and Co-creator of the Script

Robin Haig is from Perth, Western Australia, where she received her initial ballet training. In her early teens she appeared in a number of staged productions and vaudeville shows, and at the age of 17 joined a new company, the Australian Theatre Ballet, directed by Walter Gore and based in Melbourne. In the same year, 1955, Haig was awarded a scholarship by the Royal Academy of Dancing that allowed her to travel to London to continue her studies at the Royal Ballet School. On graduating from the school, she entered the Royal Ballet Company, Covent Garden, touring extensively to the United States and performing throughout Europe and Russia. She left the Royal Ballet in 1962 and worked internationally as a dancer, choreographer and teacher and then became director of the West Australian Ballet. Since coming to the U.S. in 1981, Ms. Haig has taught and choreographed as a faculty member at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and from 1990 to 2006 was on the dance faculty at University of Colorado, Boulder, teaching ballet technique and dance history. Now retired from the University, she is Senior Instructor Emerita.

M. Lee Potts, Director and Co-creator of the Script

Margaret Lee Potts served on the faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Department of Theatre and Dance from 1970 to 2001. As a professor emerita she now freelance directs and performance coaches. She has directed over one hundred theatrical productions, not only at the University of Colorado, but also for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and theatres in Washington D.C., Minnesota, Texas and Wyoming. In 1988 she directed the Scandinavian premier of Larry Shue's The Foreigner (Panget) in Sweden. Dr. Potts specializes in directing pieces that she has also scripted, including Lewis Carroll: Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (co-created with Dr. Marilyn Hetzel), which has had over fifty productions nationally and internationally. In 2000 she was honored with a career achievement award for theatrical direction from the National Communication Association and with the University of Colorado's Dorothy Martin Woman Faculty Award. Also an actor, Potts recently completed two performances for London's B.B.C. Radio 4. She lives in the mountains near Pinecliffe, CO, with her husband, Jim Drevescraft, and their dog Bruno.

Janice Benning Lacek, Design and Production Consultant

Janice Benning Lacek has been designing costumes for theatre, opera, and dance across the United States and internationally since 1987. Her work was included in the US entry in the 1999 Prague Quadrennial International Theatre Design Exhibition. Janice served as company member and resident costume designer with Denver's Curious Theatre Company 1999-2003. As an assistant professor of theatre design since 1995, she has taught theatre and costume at Kenyon College in Ohio, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. She is a graduate of Gettysburg College, and holds an MFA in theatre design from University of California-San Diego. She is a member of United Scenic Artists, Local 829. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee with her husband, David and her dog, Sasha.

Photographs in the Performance are by Keith Money, a principal photograher of Fonteyn and Nureyev. Images from Money's books are reproduced with his kind permission. Information about these books is available on his website.

Rob Leary, Multimedia Consultant, is a Ph.D. candidate in Theatre at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with many years of experience working on, off, and back stage. He is also a multimedia and classroom technology specialist at CU.

Photographs of Backstage in performance and rehearsal are by Dr. William A. Roberts; they were printed digitally by Laurel Thomsen. Dr. Roberts is also an eye physician and surgeon practicing in Boulder, CO.