Lara Foot is the current Director and CEO of the Baxter Theatre Centre. She is a multi-award winning playwright, director and author. She completed her BA (Hons) degree at Johannesburg’s Wits University in 1989 before attaining her Master’s degree at UCT in 2007.Her passion is the development of new indigenous work, young writers and directors. She has directed over 40 professional productions, 29 of which have been new South African plays. She was the founder of the Barney Simon Young Directors and Writers Festivals, and has been integral in the development of more than 35 new South African plays, including Tshepang, Hear And Now, Reach and Karoo Moose which have all toured internationally with great success and they are published by Wits Press and Oberon books.

Lara has won many awards, including the Fleur du Cap Award for Outstanding Young Director (1992), National Vita Award (shared with Athol Fugard) for Best Director (1994), Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year Award (1995), Fleur du Cap Award for Best New South African Play forTshepang (2003), and the prestigious Golden Globe Best Short Film Award in 2006. In 2004 she was the winner in the Theatre category of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative awards, and worked with the celebrated director Sir Peter Hall for a year.