Pieter Toerien

Pieter Toerien (born 1945) is a renowned South African producer and theatre manager, responsible for bringing many large scale musicals to South African stages, including Cats, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Phantom of the Opera, as well as a number of original and play productions, often collaborating with others in the field.

Early Life and Career

Toerien's theatre career started while still at school, presenting puppet shows to schools in his home town of Cape Town. At age 17, he introduced the concept of bio-vaudeville – persuading cinema managements to have live entertainment before the feature film. Under the mentorship of Britain’s theatre agent Herbert de Leon and in partnership with Basil Rubin, he brought British variety artists such as Alma Cogan and Dickie Valentine to South Africa, eventually adding Russ Conway (1964), Peter Nero (1966), Shelly Berman, Cyd Charisse, Tony Martin, Françoise Hardy and Maurice Chevalier (1967) to his list of luminaries.