James Falkland(1936-2007)

James Falkland was born James Brown in Scotland and began acting at the age of eleven. While serving in the R.A.F., he met and married his wife Debonnaire while both were serving as instructors in Berlin. Upon completing service, he returned to the U.K., where he later joined the Shakespeare Company at Stratford. In the 1960's the family moved to Malta, where he joined the Malta Amateur Dramatic Society as actor and director. In 1970 they moved to Kenya, where the couple became regular repertory players the Donovan Maule Theatre in Nairobi, which was at the time the only full-time rep company in Africa. He took over management of the theatre in 1979, but due to the combination of limited audiences and rising costs, he gave up his lease on the theatre in 1983, at which time he, Debbonaire, long-time Maul regular Kenneth Mason (the banker in Out of Africa), and former UK children's show host James Ward, established the appropriately named-Phoenix players, with its intimate basement theater on Parliament Road near the former site of the Donovan Maule Theatre. Falkland maintained a year-round repertory schedule and produced an annual musical, complete with a pocket orchestra, maintaining an impressive level of quality. Working with the American international school, he also produced and directed a series of truly stunning musicals, including Guys and Dolls and Fiddler on the Roof; the latter involving spectacular revolving sets that set a new standard for theatre in East Africa. In the late 1980's, with the goal of bringing theatre to remote locations for the first time, he put together a small company that held performances at various locations around Kenya.