Peter Hall (director)

Peter Hall
Born	Peter Reginald Frederick Hall 22 November 1930 (1930-11-22) Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England
Occupation	Director
Years active	1953-present
Spouse	4) Nikki Frei (1990-present) (one child) 3)Maria Ewing (1982-1990) (one daughter Rebecca b.1982) 2) Jacqueline Taylor (1965-1981) (two children, including a son Edward b.1967) 1) Leslie Caron (1956-1965) (one son Christopher b.1957 and one daughter Jennifer b.1958)

Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall, CBE (born 22 November 1930) is an English theatre and film director. Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (1960–68) and directed the National Theatre (1973–88), and has been prominent in defending public subsidy of the arts in Britain.

Early years

Hall was born at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England, the son of Grace Florence (née Pamment) and Reginald Edward Arthur Hall, a stationmaster. Hall attended The Perse School in Cambridge and went on to the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, where he learned to speak Russian. He produced and acted in several productions while at the University of Cambridge, was on the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club Committee 1952-3, and graduated in 1953 from St Catharine's College. During the same year, he staged his first professional play at the Theatre Royal, Windsor.

Career

From 1954 to 1955 he was at the Oxford Playhouse where he directed several notable young actors such as Ronnie Barker and Roderick Cook. In August 1955, he directed the English-language premiere of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett at the Arts Theatre, London. From 1956–1959 he ran the Arts Theatre and directed several plays including the English-language premiere of The Waltz of the Toreadors by the French dramatist Jean Anouilh. He was at Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon for the 1957 to 1959 seasons. There, his productions included: Cymbeline with Peggy Ashcroft; Coriolanus with Laurence Olivier and Edith Evans; and A Midsummer Night's Dream with Charles Laughton.

Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960, at the age of 29. He served as its artistic director from that time until 1968. He was director of the National Theatre from 1973 to 1988 and was also a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain resigning from the latter role in protest over cuts in public funding. After leaving the National Theatre he founded his own company directing a series of productions at the Old Vic.

He was a longstanding artistic director at Glyndebourne opera, where his many productions included A Midsummer Night's Dream and Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten, Monteverdi's La Calisto, and the Mozart / Lorenzo_Da_Ponte operas; Figaro, Don Giovani, and Cosi Fan Tutti. For a year he was director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden before taking up the directorship of the National Theatre. In 1983 he presented a new production of Wagner's Ring Cycle at Bayreuth, with Sir Georg Solti conducting. This production was in honour of the 100th anniversary of Wagner's death.

In 1988 he opened a production of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending in London. He later presented the production, starring Vanessa Redgrave on Broadway in 1989. A year later, he directed the a TV film adaptation of the play, Orpheus Descending.

In 1990, at the Chichester Festival Theatre he directed Born Again, a musical version of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros. Hall wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the libretto with Julian Barry, and British composer Jason Carr in Carr's first professional musical. Many years later one of the show's song's "When I Was Out This Morning" (with lyrics by Hall) was included on Carr's composer compilation album.

Sir Peter Hall is Director Emeritus of the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames which opened in January 2008, and which draws design inspiration from the original Rose theatre. In 2010 the Rose had a sell out run of his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Judi Dench playing Titania.

Personal life

Hall was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1963 and in 1977 was knighted for his services to the theatre. In 1999, he was presented with a Laurence Olivier Award. He was appointed Chancellor of Kingston University in 2000. He was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath in 2006.

Hall has married four times. His first wife was French actress Leslie Caron, followed by Jacqueline Taylor, opera soprano Maria Ewing, and present wife Nikki Frei. His diaries were published in 1983. One of his children is the actress Rebecca Hall and another is the director Edward Hall. One of his sons-in-law is Glenn Wilhide who was also the producer of The Camomile Lawn which Hall directed for television in 1992.

Stage productions

• Twelfth Night (at the Oxford Playhouse) 1954
• Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett English-language première) (at the Arts Theatre) August 1955
• The Waltz of the Toreadors (Jean Anouilh English-language première at the Arts Theatre) 1956
• Wars of the Roses, adaptation of the Henry VI and Richard III plays, the Royal Shakespeare Company 1963-1964
• The Homecoming (Harold Pinter Original production by Peter Hall; By arrangement with the Governors of the Royal Shakespeare Company) 5 January 1967 - 14 October 1967
• Old Times (Harold Pinter) 16 November 1971 - 26 February 1972
• Via Galactica (rock musical) 28 November 1972 - 2 December 1972
• Saturday Sunday Monday (Eduardo De Filippo Produced by arrangement with the National Theatre) 21 November 1974 - 30 November 1974
• As You Like It (Produced by arrangement with the National Theatre) 3 December 1974 - 8 December 1974
• The Misanthrope (Molière in a version by Tony Harrison Originally produced by the National Theatre) 12 March 1975 - 31 May 1975
• No Man's Land (Pinter, Originally produced by the National Theatre) 9 November 1976 - 18 December 1976
• Bedroom Farce (Alan Ayckbourn Originally produced by the National Theatre) 29 March 1979 - 24 November 1979
• Betrayal (Pinter) 5 January 1980 - 31 May 1980, the National Theatre
• Amadeus (Peter Shaffer world première at the National Theatre) 17 December 1980 - 16 October 1983
• Wagner's Ring Cycle at Bayreuth 1983
• Jean Seberg (Marvin Hamlisch world première at the National Theatre) 1 December 1983 - 4 April 1984
• The Petition (Brian Clark) 24 April 1986 - 29 June 1986
• Wild Honey (Michael Frayn adaptation of Chekhov) 18 December 1986 - 11 January 1987
• Orpheus Descending (Tennessee Williams) 24 September 1989 - 17 December 1989
• The Merchant of Venice 19 December 1989 - 10 March 1990
• Born Again September 1990 Chichester Festival Theatre
• Four Baboons Adoring the Sun (John Guare) 18 March 1992 - 19 April 1992
• An Ideal Husband (Oscar Wilde) 1 May 1996 - 26 Jan 1997
• Amadeus 15 December 1999 - 14 May 2000
• Amy's View (David Hare) 28 November 2006 - 17 February 2007
• The Vortex (Noël Coward) 13 November 2007 - 1 December 2007 Theatre Royal Windsor.
• An Ideal Husband (Oscar Wilde) 25 August 2008 - 29 November 2008.
• Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw) 6 February 2009 - 8 March 2009, Hong Kong Arts Festival

Film and Television

• Work is a Four Letter Word (1968)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968)
• Three Into Two Won't Go (1969) Film
• Perfect Friday (1970) Film
• The Homecoming (1973) Film
• Akenfield (1974) Film
• Aquarius TV (presenter) Episodes from 1975-1976
• She's Been Away (1980) TV (Awarded at the Venice_FIlm_Festival )
• The Camomile Lawn (1992) (TV mini-series)
• Jacob (1994) TV movie
• Never Talk to Strangers (1995) Film
• The Final Passage (1996) TV

Hall has also filmed many of his stage productions and operas for television

Books

• Making An Exhibition of Myself Autobiography
• The Peter Hall Diaries: The Story of a Dramatic Battle
• Shakespeare's Advice To The Players

Acting

Peter Hall began acting as a student at Cambridge university, where Dadie_Rylands taught him to speak Shakespearean verse. He subsequently acted in three German films, directed by Maximilian_Schell 1973-1975.

Further reading

• Pearson, Richard (1990). A Band of Arrogant and United Heroes. London: Adelphi Press. ISBN 1856540057. 
• Trowbridge, Simon (2010). The Company: A Biographical Dictionary of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Oxford: Editions Albert Creed. ISBN 9780955983023

External links

• The Company: A Biographical Dictionary of the RSC: Online database
• Peter Hall at the Internet Broadway Database
• Peter Hall at the Internet Movie Database
• Peter Hall video at Web of Stories
• Fathom biography
• Godot almighty by Peter Hall