Peter Hall (director) - Career

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 and the stage play of Gigi starring French dancer and film actress Leslie Caron. 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. During his time as director of the National Theatre, he directed a theatrical version of George Orwell's allegorical novella, Animal Farm, with music and lyrics. Coincidentally, it was first staged on 25 April 1984, (1984 being the year in which another one of Orwell's novels, Nineteen Eighty Four, took place). It toured nine cities in 1985. After leaving the National Theatre Hall founded his own company directing a series of productions at the Old Vic.

From 1970 onwards, he directed a number of operas for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, including Francesco Cavalli's L'Ormindo, Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Albert Herring, and the Mozart/Da Ponte operas The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così Fan Tutte. He also directed operas at the Royal Opera House, 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.

In 2004, Hall was invited to serve as a mentor for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, an international philanthropic programme that pairs masters in their disciplines with emerging talents for a year of one-to-one creative exchange. Out of a very gifted field of candidates, Hall chose young South African director Lara Foot as his protégée. Other theatre mentors for the initiative include Robert Wilson (2002), Julie Taymor (2006), Kate Valk (2008), Peter Sellars (2010) and Patrice Chéreau (2012).

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 sellout run of his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Judi Dench playing Titania. Ben Mansfield playing Demetrius.