The Stage

Shalit’s ROAR Group expands with majority share in Cole Kitchenn actors’ agency

Published Tuesday 20 April 2010 at 16:10 by Alistair Smith

Celebrity manager Jonathan Shalit’s ROAR Group (Rights Ownership Artist Representation) is to expand into the theatre sector, with the acquisition of the majority shareholding in actors’ agency Cole Kitchenn Personal Management.

The move sees Shalit buy a majority share from Guy Kitchenn, who remains a director of the company and a minority shareholder. Shalit will become chairman of the agency, while Stuart Piper will continue to run the organisation in the post of managing director. The company will remain affiliated to Cole Kitchenn Ltd.

Piper, who launched the agency five years ago as a subsidiary of Cole Kitchenn Ltd, told The Stage: “Very little will change day to day. Jonathan will continue to run his music management and TV talent management company and our acting agency will operate as it always has done. What we’ll have is Jonathan as a proactive ambassador for the company and, hopefully, one side will feed the other. There are celebrity clients who we can serve for acting work and Jonathan can help with profile-raising activity for our current clients.”

The agency has five staff, but Piper said there were plans for extension, following the take-over. Cole Kitchenn’s current slate of talent includes performers such as Jennifer Ellison, Amy Nuttall and Jonathan Ansell. ROAR currently represents clients including Christopher Biggins, Kelly Brook and Myleene Klass.

Shalit explained he had decided to move into the theatre industry because he felt there was an opportunity for an “aggressive” and “proactive” agency in what he claimed was still an old-fashioned business. He said he believed that Cole Kitchenn would become one of the leading agents in London “very quickly”.

He added: “I have a personal love of theatre and I’ve been distinctly unimpressed by many agents in theatre. It strikes me that the theatre in many ways is an antiquated, old-fashioned industry and from what I can work out, obviously there are some first-class agents, but the majority of agents are totally re-active rather than being proactive.

“I was excited by Stuart Piper, who is a dynamic young man, he’s a new agent really championing his talent, which I haven’t seen from a lot of theatrical agents. A lot of theatrical agents are too old-fashioned and gentle and we work in a massively competitive world, and you have to be aggressive at pushing your talent forward.”

Shalit renamed his company, formerly known as Shalit Global, as the ROAR Global earlier this year.