- published: 23 Apr 2014
- views: 22906
Peter Hall (director)
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). He has also been prominent in defending public subsidy of the arts in Britain.
Early years
Hall was born at Bury St. Edmunds, West Suffolk, England, the son of Grace Florence (née Pamment) and Reginald Edward Arthur Hall, a stationmaster, and so living for sometime at Great Shelford Station. Hall attended The Perse School in Cambridge and secured a scholarship to read English at the University of Cambridge, but first had to fulfil his National Service where he was posted to the RAF Headquarters for Education in Bückerberg, Germany. He produced and acted in several productions while at university, was on the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club Committee 1952-53, and graduated in 1953 from St Catharine's College. During the same year, he staged his first professional play at the Theatre Royal, Windsor.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_(director)
Peter Hall
Peter Hall may refer to:
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Peter_Hall
Peter Hall (diplomat)
Sir Peter Edward Hall (born 26 July 1938) is a British former diplomat. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was British Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1992 and Ambassador to Argentina from 1993 to 1997.
References
External links
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_(diplomat)
Peter Hall (financier)
Peter Hall is a London-based Australian financier, media proprietor and philanthropist. He is the Founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Hunter Hall Investment Management, an investment firm. He formerly owned stakes in Prospect and Monocle, two London-based magazines. He has donated millions of dollars to animal conservation charitable causes.
Early life
Peter Hall was born in 1960 in Bangkok, Thailand. His father was a journalist and diplomat from New Zealand. As a result, he lived in Pakistan with his family when he was five years old. He also lived in Canada, France and England. His uncle Edwin Arnold Earnshaw worked for the [[News Corporation] from 1964].
He was educated at Bedales School, a boarding school in Hampshire, England. He graduated from the University of Sydney, where he received an Arts degree.
Career
Hall started his career as a journalist for Fairfax Media.
He embarked upon a career in finance, and served as "Investment Manager at HGL Limited, Portfolio Manager and Analyst at Mercantile Mutual Holdings Limited, Industrial Analyst at Pembroke Securities Limited, Investment Analyst at New Zealand South British Insurance Limited." He credits Warren Buffett's writings as an inspiration for his career path.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_(financier)
Podcasts:
-
Peter Hall In Conversation with Nicholas Hytner | National Theatre
Peter Hall (Artistic Director of the National Theatre, 1973-1988) reflects on his career, directing the original English-language production of Waiting for Godot, working with Harold Pinter and staging Shakespeare. This is a recording of a live Platform event from January 2011. Discover more about the art of making theatre with the National Theatre: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover Bookshop: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/bookshop Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nationaltheatre Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/national.theatre.london iTunes: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/itunes TES: http://www.tes.co.uk/nationaltheatre SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/nationaltheatre
published: 23 Apr 2014 -
Peter Hall CBEm 86 (1920-2017) UK Director
Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, 86 (22nd November 1930 - 11th September 2017) was an eminent English theatre, opera and film director whose obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall’s "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 1955 Hall introduced London audiences to the work of Samuel Beckett with the UK premiere of Waiting for Godot. Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (1960-68) and went on to build an international reputation in theatre, opera, film and television. He was director of the National Theatre (1973-88) and artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1984-1990). He formed the Peter Hall Comp...
published: 30 Jan 2018 -
Peter Hall - The role of a theatre director (21/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006] TRANSCRIPT: The myth is that singers won't do... won't do acting, won't... won't be directed. It's not true at all. The problem with most singers is that they're too directable, you know, whereas you say... ‘Well, why don't you stand on that table over there and sing it’ and they stand up and they sing it. And then you say, ‘No, it's a silly idea, sorry’, and they say, ‘What's ...
published: 27 Jul 2017 -
Sir Peter Hall: The Visionary | Glyndebourne
This short film pays tribute to Sir Peter Hall, Glyndebourne's former Artistic Director who directed productions between 1970 and 2005. The film features contributions from many of the people who worked with Sir Peter at Glyndebourne, including Bernard Haitink (Conductor), John Graham-Hall (Tenor), Dame Janet Baker (Mezzo-Soprano), Sir Thomas Allen (Baritone), Stephen Lawless (Director), Jules Crocker (Former Stage Manager) and Elizabeth Bury (Designer).
published: 15 May 2018 -
Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director - Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard
The winner of the award for Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director’s acceptance speech at the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard. The award was presented by Thea Sharrock and David Suchet. The Olivier Awards with Mastercard were held in the spectacular Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 7 April 2019. Hosted by Jason Manford, the ceremony celebrates the best of British theatre from the previous year. UK viewers can watch the full show on ITV player. (https://www.itv.com/hub/itv)
published: 09 May 2019 -
Peter Hall - I want to be a director! (4/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006] TRANSCRIPT: As I got older, and as the war ended and I was 15, 16, 17, one of the advantages of being the son of an impoverished railway worker was that you got a certain number of free tickets for the railway and then reduced-price tickets. So I used to travel to London quite a lot. Extraordinary to think, actually, that, I mean, I… I know I came to London by myself, aged 14, ...
published: 27 Jul 2017 -
Peter Shaffer:Amadeus: Peter Hall, director
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was born May 15, 1926 in Liverpool, England. His twin brother, Anthony Shaffer, is also a playwright. Many of Peter Shaffer's plays premiered on the American Broadway stages. His plays include Five Finger Exercise, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Black Comedy, Equus, Amadeus, and Lettice and Lovage. Many of Shaffer's plays have been adapted for the screen, including Amadeus which won eight Academy Awards. Peter Shaffer was interviewed by Mike Wood on February 27, 1992 in New York City. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
published: 15 Feb 2012 -
Peter Hall - The author as part of the directing process (26/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006] TRANSCRIPT: Perhaps I ought to analyse a little bit more what... being a director entails because I don't think people understand really what a director is; they think of him as some sort of autocrat — which he's not. And I think the first thing to be said is that doing a play, or an opera for that matter, is very much... is very different if you're doing a modern piece in whic...
published: 27 Jul 2017 -
Peter Hall - Pauses are as important as the lines (28/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006] TRANSCRIPT: You can then really start microscopic work. I mean, you know… you can spend half a day on two pages, actually getting right to the nitty gritty. Now it will depend on the play… what you're doing. I mean, if it's Shakespeare, much of your concern will be when Shakespeare indicates a half line, a gap… in the text. What is that there for? Does it indicate a move, a pie...
published: 27 Jul 2017
developed with YouTube
47:41
Peter Hall In Conversation with Nicholas Hytner | National Theatre
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 47:41
- Uploaded Date: 23 Apr 2014
- views: 22906
Peter Hall (Artistic Director of the National Theatre, 1973-1988) reflects on his career, directing the original English-language production of Waiting for Godo...
Peter Hall (Artistic Director of the National Theatre, 1973-1988) reflects on his career, directing the original English-language production of Waiting for Godot, working with Harold Pinter and staging Shakespeare.
This is a recording of a live Platform event from January 2011.
Discover more about the art of making theatre with the National Theatre:
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover
Bookshop: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/bookshop
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nationaltheatre
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/national.theatre.london
iTunes: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/itunes
TES: http://www.tes.co.uk/nationaltheatre
SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/nationaltheatre
https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_In_Conversation_With_Nicholas_Hytner_|_National_Theatre
Peter Hall (Artistic Director of the National Theatre, 1973-1988) reflects on his career, directing the original English-language production of Waiting for Godot, working with Harold Pinter and staging Shakespeare.
This is a recording of a live Platform event from January 2011.
Discover more about the art of making theatre with the National Theatre:
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover
Bookshop: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/bookshop
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nationaltheatre
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/national.theatre.london
iTunes: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/itunes
TES: http://www.tes.co.uk/nationaltheatre
SoundCloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/nationaltheatre
57:40
Peter Hall CBEm 86 (1920-2017) UK Director
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 57:40
- Uploaded Date: 30 Jan 2018
- views: 2995
Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, 86 (22nd November 1930 - 11th September 2017) was an eminent English theatre, opera and film director whose obituary in The T...
Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, 86 (22nd November 1930 - 11th September 2017) was an eminent English theatre, opera and film director whose obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall’s "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 1955 Hall introduced London audiences to the work of Samuel Beckett with the UK premiere of Waiting for Godot. Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (1960-68) and went on to build an international reputation in theatre, opera, film and television. He was director of the National Theatre (1973-88) and artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1984-1990). He formed the Peter Hall Company (1998-2011) and became founding director of the Rose Theatre, Kingston in 2003. Throughout his career, he was a tenacious champion of public funding for the arts.
https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_Cbem_86_(1920_2017)_UK_Director
Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, 86 (22nd November 1930 - 11th September 2017) was an eminent English theatre, opera and film director whose obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall’s "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 1955 Hall introduced London audiences to the work of Samuel Beckett with the UK premiere of Waiting for Godot. Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (1960-68) and went on to build an international reputation in theatre, opera, film and television. He was director of the National Theatre (1973-88) and artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1984-1990). He formed the Peter Hall Company (1998-2011) and became founding director of the Rose Theatre, Kingston in 2003. Throughout his career, he was a tenacious champion of public funding for the arts.
- published: 30 Jan 2018
- views: 2995
4:22
Peter Hall - The role of a theatre director (21/40)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:22
- Uploaded Date: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 4737
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre di...
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: The myth is that singers won't do... won't do acting, won't... won't be directed. It's not true at all. The problem with most singers is that they're too directable, you know, whereas you say... ‘Well, why don't you stand on that table over there and sing it’ and they stand up and they sing it. And then you say, ‘No, it's a silly idea, sorry’, and they say, ‘What's the matter, isn't that what you wanted?’. And I say, ‘Look, it's not what I want; it's what you want as the performer of this character singing this music at this particular time. It's not right, is it?’. ‘Oh no’ they said, ‘It's not right’; whereas an actor would probably say, ‘Silly idea, don't want to do that’ and not do it. See what I mean?
I remember there... there was a celebrated 'Ring' at... Covent Garden a few years ago when John Tomlinson who's one of the great Wotans of our age is supposed to be carrying a spear and he... instead of carrying the spear he appeared to be carrying a... a lollipop, one of those things that people — you know, black and white — and I said to him, ‘Why were you... why were you carrying that?’. He said, ‘I don't know, I was asked to’. And I said, ‘Yeah but it's... it's nonsense’. He said, ‘Yes I know, but you know, you don't want to be difficult’. And I said ‘Well, if I was doing a... a play of 'The Ring' and I said to my Wotan, here's your lollipop stick, he'd say: “Bloody isn't, not for me’. Actors wouldn't do it. I mean in a sense because of that man with a stick, singers are much more biddable than actors, but that mean... gives... brings me to the... the very large question whether you're dealing with opera or plays, what is a director? Because it's a hideously inept word. I mean a director is somebody who says you are to do this. Don't argue, do it, direct. And that is so far away from what this work really is. I don't think anybody, you know, I... I remember when I was... was 27 or something... 28... people said to me, ‘How can you tell Laurence Olivier how to act?’. And I said: ‘That's not what a director does. You don't tell people how to act. You actually provoke them to act and then edit, criticise and help them select what they've acted’. It's... it's not dirigiste, it's not telling, it's not insisting... at all. The old idea that, you... you know... you go into rehearsal and you say here's your costume design, there's your wig over there and here's the set and all the actors feel we're in a revival and we're probably not as good as the original cast. They have no contribution to how they look or what the set is like and therefore you've already sold the past to some extent.
I think the best time I've ever had almost in the theatre, was when I did 'Antony and Cleopatra' at the National with Judi Dench and Tony Hopkins... Michael Bryant; because we had 12 weeks rehearsal. And for the first six weeks, we examined each scene, tried various physical shapes for it while Alison Chitty, the designer, sketched and at the end of six weeks as a unit, as a company again —same word — we had evolved what we wanted on our stage. Now that's not to say that a director doesn't say occasionally, I don't think we should do that, I think we should do that. There is an editorial function, which gets more and more acute as you get nearer to the first night because you... you know, it may be nice but it may not be necessary. It... it may be very misleading because of its indulgence, its richness. I mean, you've got to... you've got to be the editor but... that happens, you know, if you put a group of actors into a room with no director, a director will emerge, someone that everybody appeals to, saying how do you think that was? It's very interesting. You can't do it without.
https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_The_Role_Of_A_Theatre_Director_(21_40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: The myth is that singers won't do... won't do acting, won't... won't be directed. It's not true at all. The problem with most singers is that they're too directable, you know, whereas you say... ‘Well, why don't you stand on that table over there and sing it’ and they stand up and they sing it. And then you say, ‘No, it's a silly idea, sorry’, and they say, ‘What's the matter, isn't that what you wanted?’. And I say, ‘Look, it's not what I want; it's what you want as the performer of this character singing this music at this particular time. It's not right, is it?’. ‘Oh no’ they said, ‘It's not right’; whereas an actor would probably say, ‘Silly idea, don't want to do that’ and not do it. See what I mean?
I remember there... there was a celebrated 'Ring' at... Covent Garden a few years ago when John Tomlinson who's one of the great Wotans of our age is supposed to be carrying a spear and he... instead of carrying the spear he appeared to be carrying a... a lollipop, one of those things that people — you know, black and white — and I said to him, ‘Why were you... why were you carrying that?’. He said, ‘I don't know, I was asked to’. And I said, ‘Yeah but it's... it's nonsense’. He said, ‘Yes I know, but you know, you don't want to be difficult’. And I said ‘Well, if I was doing a... a play of 'The Ring' and I said to my Wotan, here's your lollipop stick, he'd say: “Bloody isn't, not for me’. Actors wouldn't do it. I mean in a sense because of that man with a stick, singers are much more biddable than actors, but that mean... gives... brings me to the... the very large question whether you're dealing with opera or plays, what is a director? Because it's a hideously inept word. I mean a director is somebody who says you are to do this. Don't argue, do it, direct. And that is so far away from what this work really is. I don't think anybody, you know, I... I remember when I was... was 27 or something... 28... people said to me, ‘How can you tell Laurence Olivier how to act?’. And I said: ‘That's not what a director does. You don't tell people how to act. You actually provoke them to act and then edit, criticise and help them select what they've acted’. It's... it's not dirigiste, it's not telling, it's not insisting... at all. The old idea that, you... you know... you go into rehearsal and you say here's your costume design, there's your wig over there and here's the set and all the actors feel we're in a revival and we're probably not as good as the original cast. They have no contribution to how they look or what the set is like and therefore you've already sold the past to some extent.
I think the best time I've ever had almost in the theatre, was when I did 'Antony and Cleopatra' at the National with Judi Dench and Tony Hopkins... Michael Bryant; because we had 12 weeks rehearsal. And for the first six weeks, we examined each scene, tried various physical shapes for it while Alison Chitty, the designer, sketched and at the end of six weeks as a unit, as a company again —same word — we had evolved what we wanted on our stage. Now that's not to say that a director doesn't say occasionally, I don't think we should do that, I think we should do that. There is an editorial function, which gets more and more acute as you get nearer to the first night because you... you know, it may be nice but it may not be necessary. It... it may be very misleading because of its indulgence, its richness. I mean, you've got to... you've got to be the editor but... that happens, you know, if you put a group of actors into a room with no director, a director will emerge, someone that everybody appeals to, saying how do you think that was? It's very interesting. You can't do it without.
- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 4737
3:48
Sir Peter Hall: The Visionary | Glyndebourne
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:48
- Uploaded Date: 15 May 2018
- views: 773
This short film pays tribute to Sir Peter Hall, Glyndebourne's former Artistic Director who directed productions between 1970 and 2005.
The film features contr...
This short film pays tribute to Sir Peter Hall, Glyndebourne's former Artistic Director who directed productions between 1970 and 2005.
The film features contributions from many of the people who worked with Sir Peter at Glyndebourne, including Bernard Haitink (Conductor), John Graham-Hall (Tenor), Dame Janet Baker (Mezzo-Soprano), Sir Thomas Allen (Baritone), Stephen Lawless (Director), Jules Crocker (Former Stage Manager) and Elizabeth Bury (Designer).
https://wn.com/Sir_Peter_Hall_The_Visionary_|_Glyndebourne
This short film pays tribute to Sir Peter Hall, Glyndebourne's former Artistic Director who directed productions between 1970 and 2005.
The film features contributions from many of the people who worked with Sir Peter at Glyndebourne, including Bernard Haitink (Conductor), John Graham-Hall (Tenor), Dame Janet Baker (Mezzo-Soprano), Sir Thomas Allen (Baritone), Stephen Lawless (Director), Jules Crocker (Former Stage Manager) and Elizabeth Bury (Designer).
- published: 15 May 2018
- views: 773
4:38
Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director - Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:38
- Uploaded Date: 09 May 2019
- views: 1003
The winner of the award for Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director’s acceptance speech at the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard.
The award was presented by...
The winner of the award for Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director’s acceptance speech at the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard.
The award was presented by Thea Sharrock and David Suchet.
The Olivier Awards with Mastercard were held in the spectacular Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 7 April 2019. Hosted by Jason Manford, the ceremony celebrates the best of British theatre from the previous year. UK viewers can watch the full show on ITV player. (https://www.itv.com/hub/itv)
https://wn.com/Sir_Peter_Hall_Award_For_Best_Director_Olivier_Awards_2019_With_Mastercard
The winner of the award for Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director’s acceptance speech at the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard.
The award was presented by Thea Sharrock and David Suchet.
The Olivier Awards with Mastercard were held in the spectacular Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 7 April 2019. Hosted by Jason Manford, the ceremony celebrates the best of British theatre from the previous year. UK viewers can watch the full show on ITV player. (https://www.itv.com/hub/itv)
- published: 09 May 2019
- views: 1003
2:29
Peter Hall - I want to be a director! (4/40)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:29
- Uploaded Date: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 520
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre di...
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: As I got older, and as the war ended and I was 15, 16, 17, one of the advantages of being the son of an impoverished railway worker was that you got a certain number of free tickets for the railway and then reduced-price tickets. So I used to travel to London quite a lot. Extraordinary to think, actually, that, I mean, I… I know I came to London by myself, aged 14, with the war still on, to go to the theatre. I had an aunt in Lewisham who provided a bed, and I used to go on the tram from Westminster to Lewisham and stay the night there. And in London I saw Gielgud's seasons at the Haymarket, 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'The Duchess of Malfi', 'Peggy Ashcroft', 'Hamlet' again at the New Theatre as it then was, subsequently became the Albery Theatre and has now become, I think, the Coward Theatre – keeps on changing its name. I saw the Olivier/Richardson great seasons. I saw Richardson play Falstaff in both parts, I saw Olivier's 'Richard III', I saw 'Arms and the Man', I saw 'Peer Gynt'. I mean, by this time I was absolutely hooked. I wanted to not be an actor. I wanted to be a director. I don't know, I certainly didn't know what a director was at that point except I… I knew that somebody made it happen. Somebody was in charge of it in some sense, and that's what I wanted to be. So I read my Stanislavsky and I read my Gordon Craig and I tried to understand what a director was. A director then, of course, was somewhat young in the… in fashion, anyway. Directors tend to be called producers – 'the play produced by Mr so and so' it would say on the programme where, you know, now it's the director. We've taken on the film parlance. The producer's the man who raises the money, the director's the man who does the work of actually putting the… the show together.
https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_I_Want_To_Be_A_Director_(4_40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: As I got older, and as the war ended and I was 15, 16, 17, one of the advantages of being the son of an impoverished railway worker was that you got a certain number of free tickets for the railway and then reduced-price tickets. So I used to travel to London quite a lot. Extraordinary to think, actually, that, I mean, I… I know I came to London by myself, aged 14, with the war still on, to go to the theatre. I had an aunt in Lewisham who provided a bed, and I used to go on the tram from Westminster to Lewisham and stay the night there. And in London I saw Gielgud's seasons at the Haymarket, 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'The Duchess of Malfi', 'Peggy Ashcroft', 'Hamlet' again at the New Theatre as it then was, subsequently became the Albery Theatre and has now become, I think, the Coward Theatre – keeps on changing its name. I saw the Olivier/Richardson great seasons. I saw Richardson play Falstaff in both parts, I saw Olivier's 'Richard III', I saw 'Arms and the Man', I saw 'Peer Gynt'. I mean, by this time I was absolutely hooked. I wanted to not be an actor. I wanted to be a director. I don't know, I certainly didn't know what a director was at that point except I… I knew that somebody made it happen. Somebody was in charge of it in some sense, and that's what I wanted to be. So I read my Stanislavsky and I read my Gordon Craig and I tried to understand what a director was. A director then, of course, was somewhat young in the… in fashion, anyway. Directors tend to be called producers – 'the play produced by Mr so and so' it would say on the programme where, you know, now it's the director. We've taken on the film parlance. The producer's the man who raises the money, the director's the man who does the work of actually putting the… the show together.
- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 520
2:37
Peter Shaffer:Amadeus: Peter Hall, director
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:37
- Uploaded Date: 15 Feb 2012
- views: 615
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was born May 15, 1926 in Liverpool, England. His twin brother, Anthony Shaffer, is also a playwright. Many of Peter Shaffer's play...
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was born May 15, 1926 in Liverpool, England. His twin brother, Anthony Shaffer, is also a playwright. Many of Peter Shaffer's plays premiered on the American Broadway stages. His plays include Five Finger Exercise, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Black Comedy, Equus, Amadeus, and Lettice and Lovage. Many of Shaffer's plays have been adapted for the screen, including Amadeus which won eight Academy Awards. Peter Shaffer was interviewed by Mike Wood on February 27, 1992 in New York City. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
https://wn.com/Peter_Shaffer_Amadeus_Peter_Hall,_Director
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was born May 15, 1926 in Liverpool, England. His twin brother, Anthony Shaffer, is also a playwright. Many of Peter Shaffer's plays premiered on the American Broadway stages. His plays include Five Finger Exercise, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Black Comedy, Equus, Amadeus, and Lettice and Lovage. Many of Shaffer's plays have been adapted for the screen, including Amadeus which won eight Academy Awards. Peter Shaffer was interviewed by Mike Wood on February 27, 1992 in New York City. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
- published: 15 Feb 2012
- views: 615
3:45
Peter Hall - The author as part of the directing process (26/40)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:45
- Uploaded Date: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 500
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre di...
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: Perhaps I ought to analyse a little bit more what... being a director entails because I don't think people understand really what a director is; they think of him as some sort of autocrat — which he's not. And I think the first thing to be said is that doing a play, or an opera for that matter, is very much... is very different if you're doing a modern piece in which the author is available and comes to work with you, or whether you're doing a classic of the past where you have to find out so much about the context in which the work was originally given. Well if you're dealing with Samuel Beckett or Tennessee Williams or Harold Pinter or Peter Schaffer or Simon Gray... or, you know, these are just people I've worked with and have been blessed with... Michael Tippett in opera...then you have an absolute interplay. You can say, 'what do you mean here' and mostly the Samuel Becketts and the Harold Pinters of this world say I don't know what I meant, what does it say. And they make you look and see what it says. So you actually try and figure out what they meant. And that, of course, is quite a creative act in itself, which is much better than the author just telling you, this is what it meant. Sometimes authors are very bad directors of their own work because the actor asks what it means and they're told categorically what they means and they then act a category, just something very simplistic, so it lacks ambiguity. So it's... it's very, very different. I love working on a modern piece with the author; the only thing I do absolutely say is that if you're going to come as an author to rehearsal you should be there most of the time. You shouldn't come on special days when the author is present, which paralyses everybody. In other words, he should be part of the process and he should be able to say anything he wants about what the director's doing and the director should be able to say anything he wants about the text. That's how I've done... I don't know, 10 or 11 plays of Harold Pinter's and I think it sometimes slightly unnerves the actors when they see two people arguing like we do but our argument is so... is very well intentioned and very amiable. It's not destructive and it's not egotistical. So it works and it's very creative. If you're doing a historical piece, an old piece, a Shakespeare piece, one of the first things you have to do is to try and immerse yourself in the period of the piece itself, socially and historically, and try to understand why he wrote that as he wrote that at the moment that he wrote that for the audience he was writing for. All these are great imponderables and it's a lot of scholarly work, a lot of scholarly reading, which you don't bring into the rehearsal room with you because actors are not really very interested in scholarship; they want something visceral they can get hold of. But you can create an atmosphere, I think, where you... you know, the actors really respond to their duty which I think is not to say... had Shakespeare been writing now he would have done it like this, but to say Shakespeare wrote it wanting it to mean something like this and this is what we're trying to convey to you. That's very difficult to define and, you know, you can argue over it very, very much and very often.
https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_The_Author_As_Part_Of_The_Directing_Process_(26_40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: Perhaps I ought to analyse a little bit more what... being a director entails because I don't think people understand really what a director is; they think of him as some sort of autocrat — which he's not. And I think the first thing to be said is that doing a play, or an opera for that matter, is very much... is very different if you're doing a modern piece in which the author is available and comes to work with you, or whether you're doing a classic of the past where you have to find out so much about the context in which the work was originally given. Well if you're dealing with Samuel Beckett or Tennessee Williams or Harold Pinter or Peter Schaffer or Simon Gray... or, you know, these are just people I've worked with and have been blessed with... Michael Tippett in opera...then you have an absolute interplay. You can say, 'what do you mean here' and mostly the Samuel Becketts and the Harold Pinters of this world say I don't know what I meant, what does it say. And they make you look and see what it says. So you actually try and figure out what they meant. And that, of course, is quite a creative act in itself, which is much better than the author just telling you, this is what it meant. Sometimes authors are very bad directors of their own work because the actor asks what it means and they're told categorically what they means and they then act a category, just something very simplistic, so it lacks ambiguity. So it's... it's very, very different. I love working on a modern piece with the author; the only thing I do absolutely say is that if you're going to come as an author to rehearsal you should be there most of the time. You shouldn't come on special days when the author is present, which paralyses everybody. In other words, he should be part of the process and he should be able to say anything he wants about what the director's doing and the director should be able to say anything he wants about the text. That's how I've done... I don't know, 10 or 11 plays of Harold Pinter's and I think it sometimes slightly unnerves the actors when they see two people arguing like we do but our argument is so... is very well intentioned and very amiable. It's not destructive and it's not egotistical. So it works and it's very creative. If you're doing a historical piece, an old piece, a Shakespeare piece, one of the first things you have to do is to try and immerse yourself in the period of the piece itself, socially and historically, and try to understand why he wrote that as he wrote that at the moment that he wrote that for the audience he was writing for. All these are great imponderables and it's a lot of scholarly work, a lot of scholarly reading, which you don't bring into the rehearsal room with you because actors are not really very interested in scholarship; they want something visceral they can get hold of. But you can create an atmosphere, I think, where you... you know, the actors really respond to their duty which I think is not to say... had Shakespeare been writing now he would have done it like this, but to say Shakespeare wrote it wanting it to mean something like this and this is what we're trying to convey to you. That's very difficult to define and, you know, you can argue over it very, very much and very often.
- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 500
5:19
Peter Hall - Pauses are as important as the lines (28/40)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:19
- Uploaded Date: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 3181
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre di...
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: You can then really start microscopic work. I mean, you know… you can spend half a day on two pages, actually getting right to the nitty gritty. Now it will depend on the play… what you're doing. I mean, if it's Shakespeare, much of your concern will be when Shakespeare indicates a half line, a gap… in the text. What is that there for? Does it indicate a move, a piece of physical business? Does it indicate a moment of stillness? Does it indicate a pause, or what? So much of that comes off the page still. If you're dealing with Pinter you have a plethora of pauses and silences written into the text. When I first started doing Pinter actors would say: ‘What's this pause here and we decide where we pause’. And I would say: ‘No, you don't; that pause is as eloquent as a line and I'll show you how’. Pinter's pauses are about the unsaid but if the actors don't know what is… what is unsaid, the pause will never hold and the pause will seem rather artificial, rather camp, rather silly. And I'm sure, you know, you can very easily see Pinter that's drummed into significance by all these pauses being held by actors who don't know why they're holding them. So you have to get a subtext going so the actor knows what's going on inside himself. The pause is a crisis point about the unsayable or the unsaid but nobody after a pause is in exactly the same state as they were in when they went into it. I get people to learn pauses as if they were lines and I remember indeed when… years ago when I did the first performance of 'No Man's Land' with… with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, they both of them came from a theatre which didn't really use pauses very much and didn't understand them very well. So whenever there was a pause the other one thought the other one had dried so they would say: ‘Johnny, is that you?’ or Ralph would say…and Ralph would say… Johnny would say: ‘Ralph is that you?’. And I finally had to have the stage manager rehearse them through so that they said the line and then the stage manager said loudly: ‘Pause’. And finally we got the shape, the form, which we were supposed to end up with.
Now, now we're in deep water. The tradition of Stanislavsky and the tradition of the American Method is that the actor says: ‘Who am I, what do I want, what is my motivation, what is my emotional centre, what is my demand, what is my emotional demand?
[JG] Who are my parents?
Yeah. And they… it'd go on and on and on like that and then they say: ‘Now what do I say?… to be or not… I don't want to say that'. So you… you improvise emotionally without words and then you go and look at the text. So the feeling comes before the form. I have absolutely no doubt that real, credible theatre — I use the word credible, not true, because theatre is not true, there's nothing true about standing on a stage saying somebody else's lines in somebody else's clothes — there can be something credible but theatre that is credible has to, I think, put form before feeling. Because what we've got is the form, whether it be a Mozart aria or whether it be an Aeschylean huge speech to be delivered in a mask, there is a form which sustains the piece and it's the tension between the form and the feeling which actually excites the audience. If you feel, you can't express the form. If Ophelia comes out from the nunnery scene and says: ‘Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown’, in hysterics, she's got 14 lines which is very like a sonnet of antithetical analysis of what he could have been and what he is. And you can't do that if you're sobbing your guts out. Inside she's sobbing her guts out and using the words in order to keep control. So the form comes first and then the feeling, and whether you're singing an aria or whether you're working in a mask or whether you're doing Shakespeare's blank verse or whether you're doing Pinter's pauses or whether you're doing Beckett's antitheses they are all formal disciplines. The mask is exactly like the form of the aria or the form of the verse, or the form of the… of the pauses and the writing of Pinter or Beckett. And that's something I've written about and tried to get down into two books about the nature of mask. Because I think mask in that sense is anything formal — the formal discipline. And I suppose that's what my whole life has been built on, that and the search for a company.
https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_Pauses_Are_As_Important_As_The_Lines_(28_40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: You can then really start microscopic work. I mean, you know… you can spend half a day on two pages, actually getting right to the nitty gritty. Now it will depend on the play… what you're doing. I mean, if it's Shakespeare, much of your concern will be when Shakespeare indicates a half line, a gap… in the text. What is that there for? Does it indicate a move, a piece of physical business? Does it indicate a moment of stillness? Does it indicate a pause, or what? So much of that comes off the page still. If you're dealing with Pinter you have a plethora of pauses and silences written into the text. When I first started doing Pinter actors would say: ‘What's this pause here and we decide where we pause’. And I would say: ‘No, you don't; that pause is as eloquent as a line and I'll show you how’. Pinter's pauses are about the unsaid but if the actors don't know what is… what is unsaid, the pause will never hold and the pause will seem rather artificial, rather camp, rather silly. And I'm sure, you know, you can very easily see Pinter that's drummed into significance by all these pauses being held by actors who don't know why they're holding them. So you have to get a subtext going so the actor knows what's going on inside himself. The pause is a crisis point about the unsayable or the unsaid but nobody after a pause is in exactly the same state as they were in when they went into it. I get people to learn pauses as if they were lines and I remember indeed when… years ago when I did the first performance of 'No Man's Land' with… with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, they both of them came from a theatre which didn't really use pauses very much and didn't understand them very well. So whenever there was a pause the other one thought the other one had dried so they would say: ‘Johnny, is that you?’ or Ralph would say…and Ralph would say… Johnny would say: ‘Ralph is that you?’. And I finally had to have the stage manager rehearse them through so that they said the line and then the stage manager said loudly: ‘Pause’. And finally we got the shape, the form, which we were supposed to end up with.
Now, now we're in deep water. The tradition of Stanislavsky and the tradition of the American Method is that the actor says: ‘Who am I, what do I want, what is my motivation, what is my emotional centre, what is my demand, what is my emotional demand?
[JG] Who are my parents?
Yeah. And they… it'd go on and on and on like that and then they say: ‘Now what do I say?… to be or not… I don't want to say that'. So you… you improvise emotionally without words and then you go and look at the text. So the feeling comes before the form. I have absolutely no doubt that real, credible theatre — I use the word credible, not true, because theatre is not true, there's nothing true about standing on a stage saying somebody else's lines in somebody else's clothes — there can be something credible but theatre that is credible has to, I think, put form before feeling. Because what we've got is the form, whether it be a Mozart aria or whether it be an Aeschylean huge speech to be delivered in a mask, there is a form which sustains the piece and it's the tension between the form and the feeling which actually excites the audience. If you feel, you can't express the form. If Ophelia comes out from the nunnery scene and says: ‘Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown’, in hysterics, she's got 14 lines which is very like a sonnet of antithetical analysis of what he could have been and what he is. And you can't do that if you're sobbing your guts out. Inside she's sobbing her guts out and using the words in order to keep control. So the form comes first and then the feeling, and whether you're singing an aria or whether you're working in a mask or whether you're doing Shakespeare's blank verse or whether you're doing Pinter's pauses or whether you're doing Beckett's antitheses they are all formal disciplines. The mask is exactly like the form of the aria or the form of the verse, or the form of the… of the pauses and the writing of Pinter or Beckett. And that's something I've written about and tried to get down into two books about the nature of mask. Because I think mask in that sense is anything formal — the formal discipline. And I suppose that's what my whole life has been built on, that and the search for a company.
- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 3181
47:41
Peter Hall In Conversation with Nicholas Hytner | National Theatre
Peter Hall (Artistic Director of the National Theatre, 1973-1988) reflects on his career, ...
published: 23 Apr 2014
Peter Hall In Conversation with Nicholas Hytner | National Theatre
Peter Hall In Conversation with Nicholas Hytner | National Theatre
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- published: 23 Apr 2014
- views: 22906
Peter Hall (Artistic Director of the National Theatre, 1973-1988) reflects on his career, directing the original English-language production of Waiting for Godot, working with Harold Pinter and staging Shakespeare.
This is a recording of a live Platform event from January 2011.
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57:40
Peter Hall CBEm 86 (1920-2017) UK Director
Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, 86 (22nd November 1930 - 11th September 2017) was an em...
published: 30 Jan 2018
Peter Hall CBEm 86 (1920-2017) UK Director
Peter Hall CBEm 86 (1920-2017) UK Director
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- published: 30 Jan 2018
- views: 2995
Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, 86 (22nd November 1930 - 11th September 2017) was an eminent English theatre, opera and film director whose obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall’s "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 1955 Hall introduced London audiences to the work of Samuel Beckett with the UK premiere of Waiting for Godot. Hall founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (1960-68) and went on to build an international reputation in theatre, opera, film and television. He was director of the National Theatre (1973-88) and artistic director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera (1984-1990). He formed the Peter Hall Company (1998-2011) and became founding director of the Rose Theatre, Kingston in 2003. Throughout his career, he was a tenacious champion of public funding for the arts.
4:22
Peter Hall - The role of a theatre director (21/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/pla...
published: 27 Jul 2017
Peter Hall - The role of a theatre director (21/40)
Peter Hall - The role of a theatre director (21/40)
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- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 4737
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: The myth is that singers won't do... won't do acting, won't... won't be directed. It's not true at all. The problem with most singers is that they're too directable, you know, whereas you say... ‘Well, why don't you stand on that table over there and sing it’ and they stand up and they sing it. And then you say, ‘No, it's a silly idea, sorry’, and they say, ‘What's the matter, isn't that what you wanted?’. And I say, ‘Look, it's not what I want; it's what you want as the performer of this character singing this music at this particular time. It's not right, is it?’. ‘Oh no’ they said, ‘It's not right’; whereas an actor would probably say, ‘Silly idea, don't want to do that’ and not do it. See what I mean?
I remember there... there was a celebrated 'Ring' at... Covent Garden a few years ago when John Tomlinson who's one of the great Wotans of our age is supposed to be carrying a spear and he... instead of carrying the spear he appeared to be carrying a... a lollipop, one of those things that people — you know, black and white — and I said to him, ‘Why were you... why were you carrying that?’. He said, ‘I don't know, I was asked to’. And I said, ‘Yeah but it's... it's nonsense’. He said, ‘Yes I know, but you know, you don't want to be difficult’. And I said ‘Well, if I was doing a... a play of 'The Ring' and I said to my Wotan, here's your lollipop stick, he'd say: “Bloody isn't, not for me’. Actors wouldn't do it. I mean in a sense because of that man with a stick, singers are much more biddable than actors, but that mean... gives... brings me to the... the very large question whether you're dealing with opera or plays, what is a director? Because it's a hideously inept word. I mean a director is somebody who says you are to do this. Don't argue, do it, direct. And that is so far away from what this work really is. I don't think anybody, you know, I... I remember when I was... was 27 or something... 28... people said to me, ‘How can you tell Laurence Olivier how to act?’. And I said: ‘That's not what a director does. You don't tell people how to act. You actually provoke them to act and then edit, criticise and help them select what they've acted’. It's... it's not dirigiste, it's not telling, it's not insisting... at all. The old idea that, you... you know... you go into rehearsal and you say here's your costume design, there's your wig over there and here's the set and all the actors feel we're in a revival and we're probably not as good as the original cast. They have no contribution to how they look or what the set is like and therefore you've already sold the past to some extent.
I think the best time I've ever had almost in the theatre, was when I did 'Antony and Cleopatra' at the National with Judi Dench and Tony Hopkins... Michael Bryant; because we had 12 weeks rehearsal. And for the first six weeks, we examined each scene, tried various physical shapes for it while Alison Chitty, the designer, sketched and at the end of six weeks as a unit, as a company again —same word — we had evolved what we wanted on our stage. Now that's not to say that a director doesn't say occasionally, I don't think we should do that, I think we should do that. There is an editorial function, which gets more and more acute as you get nearer to the first night because you... you know, it may be nice but it may not be necessary. It... it may be very misleading because of its indulgence, its richness. I mean, you've got to... you've got to be the editor but... that happens, you know, if you put a group of actors into a room with no director, a director will emerge, someone that everybody appeals to, saying how do you think that was? It's very interesting. You can't do it without.
3:48
Sir Peter Hall: The Visionary | Glyndebourne
This short film pays tribute to Sir Peter Hall, Glyndebourne's former Artistic Director wh...
published: 15 May 2018
Sir Peter Hall: The Visionary | Glyndebourne
Sir Peter Hall: The Visionary | Glyndebourne
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- published: 15 May 2018
- views: 773
This short film pays tribute to Sir Peter Hall, Glyndebourne's former Artistic Director who directed productions between 1970 and 2005.
The film features contributions from many of the people who worked with Sir Peter at Glyndebourne, including Bernard Haitink (Conductor), John Graham-Hall (Tenor), Dame Janet Baker (Mezzo-Soprano), Sir Thomas Allen (Baritone), Stephen Lawless (Director), Jules Crocker (Former Stage Manager) and Elizabeth Bury (Designer).
4:38
Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director - Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard
The winner of the award for Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director’s acceptance speech at ...
published: 09 May 2019
Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director - Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard
Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director - Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard
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- published: 09 May 2019
- views: 1003
The winner of the award for Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director’s acceptance speech at the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard.
The award was presented by Thea Sharrock and David Suchet.
The Olivier Awards with Mastercard were held in the spectacular Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 7 April 2019. Hosted by Jason Manford, the ceremony celebrates the best of British theatre from the previous year. UK viewers can watch the full show on ITV player. (https://www.itv.com/hub/itv)
2:29
Peter Hall - I want to be a director! (4/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/pla...
published: 27 Jul 2017
Peter Hall - I want to be a director! (4/40)
Peter Hall - I want to be a director! (4/40)
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- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 520
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: As I got older, and as the war ended and I was 15, 16, 17, one of the advantages of being the son of an impoverished railway worker was that you got a certain number of free tickets for the railway and then reduced-price tickets. So I used to travel to London quite a lot. Extraordinary to think, actually, that, I mean, I… I know I came to London by myself, aged 14, with the war still on, to go to the theatre. I had an aunt in Lewisham who provided a bed, and I used to go on the tram from Westminster to Lewisham and stay the night there. And in London I saw Gielgud's seasons at the Haymarket, 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'The Duchess of Malfi', 'Peggy Ashcroft', 'Hamlet' again at the New Theatre as it then was, subsequently became the Albery Theatre and has now become, I think, the Coward Theatre – keeps on changing its name. I saw the Olivier/Richardson great seasons. I saw Richardson play Falstaff in both parts, I saw Olivier's 'Richard III', I saw 'Arms and the Man', I saw 'Peer Gynt'. I mean, by this time I was absolutely hooked. I wanted to not be an actor. I wanted to be a director. I don't know, I certainly didn't know what a director was at that point except I… I knew that somebody made it happen. Somebody was in charge of it in some sense, and that's what I wanted to be. So I read my Stanislavsky and I read my Gordon Craig and I tried to understand what a director was. A director then, of course, was somewhat young in the… in fashion, anyway. Directors tend to be called producers – 'the play produced by Mr so and so' it would say on the programme where, you know, now it's the director. We've taken on the film parlance. The producer's the man who raises the money, the director's the man who does the work of actually putting the… the show together.
2:37
Peter Shaffer:Amadeus: Peter Hall, director
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was born May 15, 1926 in Liverpool, England. His twin brothe...
published: 15 Feb 2012
Peter Shaffer:Amadeus: Peter Hall, director
Peter Shaffer:Amadeus: Peter Hall, director
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- published: 15 Feb 2012
- views: 615
Playwright Sir Peter Shaffer was born May 15, 1926 in Liverpool, England. His twin brother, Anthony Shaffer, is also a playwright. Many of Peter Shaffer's plays premiered on the American Broadway stages. His plays include Five Finger Exercise, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Black Comedy, Equus, Amadeus, and Lettice and Lovage. Many of Shaffer's plays have been adapted for the screen, including Amadeus which won eight Academy Awards. Peter Shaffer was interviewed by Mike Wood on February 27, 1992 in New York City. The interview segments are courtesy of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kansas.
3:45
Peter Hall - The author as part of the directing process (26/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/pla...
published: 27 Jul 2017
Peter Hall - The author as part of the directing process (26/40)
Peter Hall - The author as part of the directing process (26/40)
- Report rights infringement
- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 500
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: Perhaps I ought to analyse a little bit more what... being a director entails because I don't think people understand really what a director is; they think of him as some sort of autocrat — which he's not. And I think the first thing to be said is that doing a play, or an opera for that matter, is very much... is very different if you're doing a modern piece in which the author is available and comes to work with you, or whether you're doing a classic of the past where you have to find out so much about the context in which the work was originally given. Well if you're dealing with Samuel Beckett or Tennessee Williams or Harold Pinter or Peter Schaffer or Simon Gray... or, you know, these are just people I've worked with and have been blessed with... Michael Tippett in opera...then you have an absolute interplay. You can say, 'what do you mean here' and mostly the Samuel Becketts and the Harold Pinters of this world say I don't know what I meant, what does it say. And they make you look and see what it says. So you actually try and figure out what they meant. And that, of course, is quite a creative act in itself, which is much better than the author just telling you, this is what it meant. Sometimes authors are very bad directors of their own work because the actor asks what it means and they're told categorically what they means and they then act a category, just something very simplistic, so it lacks ambiguity. So it's... it's very, very different. I love working on a modern piece with the author; the only thing I do absolutely say is that if you're going to come as an author to rehearsal you should be there most of the time. You shouldn't come on special days when the author is present, which paralyses everybody. In other words, he should be part of the process and he should be able to say anything he wants about what the director's doing and the director should be able to say anything he wants about the text. That's how I've done... I don't know, 10 or 11 plays of Harold Pinter's and I think it sometimes slightly unnerves the actors when they see two people arguing like we do but our argument is so... is very well intentioned and very amiable. It's not destructive and it's not egotistical. So it works and it's very creative. If you're doing a historical piece, an old piece, a Shakespeare piece, one of the first things you have to do is to try and immerse yourself in the period of the piece itself, socially and historically, and try to understand why he wrote that as he wrote that at the moment that he wrote that for the audience he was writing for. All these are great imponderables and it's a lot of scholarly work, a lot of scholarly reading, which you don't bring into the rehearsal room with you because actors are not really very interested in scholarship; they want something visceral they can get hold of. But you can create an atmosphere, I think, where you... you know, the actors really respond to their duty which I think is not to say... had Shakespeare been writing now he would have done it like this, but to say Shakespeare wrote it wanting it to mean something like this and this is what we're trying to convey to you. That's very difficult to define and, you know, you can argue over it very, very much and very often.
5:19
Peter Hall - Pauses are as important as the lines (28/40)
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/pla...
published: 27 Jul 2017
Peter Hall - Pauses are as important as the lines (28/40)
Peter Hall - Pauses are as important as the lines (28/40)
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- published: 27 Jul 2017
- views: 3181
To listen to more of Peter Hall’s stories, go to the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxvFwDL5JP8tHveaKSdsiiB
British-born theatre director, Sir Peter Hall (1930-2017), ran the Arts Theatre, founded the Royal Shakespeare Company when he was only 29, and directed the National Theatre. In 1977 he was knighted for his contribution to the theatre. [Listener: John Goodwin; date recorded: 2006]
TRANSCRIPT: You can then really start microscopic work. I mean, you know… you can spend half a day on two pages, actually getting right to the nitty gritty. Now it will depend on the play… what you're doing. I mean, if it's Shakespeare, much of your concern will be when Shakespeare indicates a half line, a gap… in the text. What is that there for? Does it indicate a move, a piece of physical business? Does it indicate a moment of stillness? Does it indicate a pause, or what? So much of that comes off the page still. If you're dealing with Pinter you have a plethora of pauses and silences written into the text. When I first started doing Pinter actors would say: ‘What's this pause here and we decide where we pause’. And I would say: ‘No, you don't; that pause is as eloquent as a line and I'll show you how’. Pinter's pauses are about the unsaid but if the actors don't know what is… what is unsaid, the pause will never hold and the pause will seem rather artificial, rather camp, rather silly. And I'm sure, you know, you can very easily see Pinter that's drummed into significance by all these pauses being held by actors who don't know why they're holding them. So you have to get a subtext going so the actor knows what's going on inside himself. The pause is a crisis point about the unsayable or the unsaid but nobody after a pause is in exactly the same state as they were in when they went into it. I get people to learn pauses as if they were lines and I remember indeed when… years ago when I did the first performance of 'No Man's Land' with… with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson, they both of them came from a theatre which didn't really use pauses very much and didn't understand them very well. So whenever there was a pause the other one thought the other one had dried so they would say: ‘Johnny, is that you?’ or Ralph would say…and Ralph would say… Johnny would say: ‘Ralph is that you?’. And I finally had to have the stage manager rehearse them through so that they said the line and then the stage manager said loudly: ‘Pause’. And finally we got the shape, the form, which we were supposed to end up with.
Now, now we're in deep water. The tradition of Stanislavsky and the tradition of the American Method is that the actor says: ‘Who am I, what do I want, what is my motivation, what is my emotional centre, what is my demand, what is my emotional demand?
[JG] Who are my parents?
Yeah. And they… it'd go on and on and on like that and then they say: ‘Now what do I say?… to be or not… I don't want to say that'. So you… you improvise emotionally without words and then you go and look at the text. So the feeling comes before the form. I have absolutely no doubt that real, credible theatre — I use the word credible, not true, because theatre is not true, there's nothing true about standing on a stage saying somebody else's lines in somebody else's clothes — there can be something credible but theatre that is credible has to, I think, put form before feeling. Because what we've got is the form, whether it be a Mozart aria or whether it be an Aeschylean huge speech to be delivered in a mask, there is a form which sustains the piece and it's the tension between the form and the feeling which actually excites the audience. If you feel, you can't express the form. If Ophelia comes out from the nunnery scene and says: ‘Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown’, in hysterics, she's got 14 lines which is very like a sonnet of antithetical analysis of what he could have been and what he is. And you can't do that if you're sobbing your guts out. Inside she's sobbing her guts out and using the words in order to keep control. So the form comes first and then the feeling, and whether you're singing an aria or whether you're working in a mask or whether you're doing Shakespeare's blank verse or whether you're doing Pinter's pauses or whether you're doing Beckett's antitheses they are all formal disciplines. The mask is exactly like the form of the aria or the form of the verse, or the form of the… of the pauses and the writing of Pinter or Beckett. And that's something I've written about and tried to get down into two books about the nature of mask. Because I think mask in that sense is anything formal — the formal discipline. And I suppose that's what my whole life has been built on, that and the search for a company.
Peter Hall (director)
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). He has also been prominent in defending public subsidy of the arts in Britain.
Early years
Hall was born at Bury St. Edmunds, West Suffolk, England, the son of Grace Florence (née Pamment) and Reginald Edward Arthur Hall, a stationmaster, and so living for sometime at Great Shelford Station. Hall attended The Perse School in Cambridge and secured a scholarship to read English at the University of Cambridge, but first had to fulfil his National Service where he was posted to the RAF Headquarters for Education in Bückerberg, Germany. He produced and acted in several productions while at university, was on the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club Committee 1952-53, and graduated in 1953 from St Catharine's College. During the same year, he staged his first professional play at the Theatre Royal, Windsor.
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Peter_Hall_(director)
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