Philip Prowse

Last updated

Philip Prowse (born 29 December 1937) is a stage director and designer, and was one of the triumvirate of directors at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, from 1970 until 2004.

Contents

Early life and education

Prowse was born in England on 29 December 1937, [1] and was trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. [2]

Career

He moved to Scotland in 1969, [2] From 1970 he was a co-director of the Citizens Theatre with Giles Havergal and Robert David MacDonald, [3] [4] [5] having previously worked with Havergal at the Watford Palace Theatre. Prowse's last production at the Citizens Theatre was Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd in 2004. He directed and designed over 70 plays with the Citizens Theatre[ citation needed ] and has worked throughout the world designing and directing for opera, ballet and drama. [2]

Long term artistic collaborators include those with actor Glenda Jackson and director/choreographer Geoffrey Cauley.[ citation needed ]

MacDonald's English translation of Racine's Phèdre , titled Phedra, was produced at The Old Vic in November 1984, designed and directed by Prowse and with Glenda Jackson in the title role and Robert Eddison as Theramenes. [6] [7] The costume which he designed for Jackson's performance is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. [8]

Up to his retirement Prowse also taught on the Theatre Design MFA course at the Slade School of Fine Art.[ citation needed ]

Recognition

There are two paintings of Prowse by Adrian Wiszniewski, commissioned by Scottish National Portrait Gallery, completed in 1995 and in their collections. [2] There is also a photograph taken around 2004 by Richard Campbell, also in the collection. [9]

National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview with Hudson in 2005 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy West</span> English film, stage, and television actor

Timothy Lancaster West, CBE is an English actor and presenter. He has appeared frequently on stage and television, including stints in both Coronation Street and EastEnders, and Not Going Out, as the original Geoffrey Adams. He is married to the actress Prunella Scales; from 2014 to 2019, they travelled together on UK and overseas canals in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glenda Jackson</span> English actress and politician (1936–2023)

Glenda May Jackson was an English actress and politician. She was one of the few performers to achieve the American Triple Crown of Acting, having won two Academy Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. A member of the Labour Party, she served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 23 years, initially for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010, and Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 to 2015, following boundary changes.

The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid-20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics. The writers and artists of the Scottish Renaissance displayed a profound interest in both modern philosophy and technology, as well as incorporating folk influences, and a strong concern for the fate of Scotland's declining languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edinburgh College of Art</span> Art school at the University of Edinburgh

Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, history of art, and music disciplines for over three thousand students and is at the forefront of research and research-led teaching in the creative arts, humanities, and creative technologies. ECA comprises five subject areas: School of Art, Reid School of Music, School of Design, School of History of Art, and Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture (ESALA). ECA is mainly located in the Old Town of Edinburgh, overlooking the Grassmarket; the Lauriston Place campus is located in the University of Edinburgh's Central Area Campus, not far from George Square.

<i>Phèdre</i> 1677 tragedy by Racine

Phèdre is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citizens Theatre</span> Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland

The Citizens Theatre, in what was the Royal Princess's Theatre, is the creation of James Bridie and is based in Glasgow, Scotland as a principal producing theatre. The theatre includes a 500-seat Main Auditorium, and has also included various studio theatres over time.

Laurance Rudic is a British theatre artist best known for his long association as a leading member of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre company - 1972-1996.

William Campbell Rough Bryden was a Scottish stage and film director and screenwriter.

Paul Rhys is a Welsh theatre, television and film actor.

Malcolm MacDonald was a British author, mainly about music.

Events from the year 1931 in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Dunlop (director)</span> British theatre director

Frank Dunlop is a British theatre director.

Joanna M Tope is an English actress. She has appeared in many TV programmes including Emmerdale Farm as Dr. Clare Scott between 1973 and 1977, The Omega Factor as Julia Crane in 1979 and The Tomorrow People as Mrs Boswell.

Robert David MacDonald, known as David, was a Scottish playwright, translator and theatre director.

William Dudley is a British theatre designer.

Giles Pollock Havergal CBE is a theatre director and actor, opera stage director, teacher, and adaptor. He was artistic director of Glasgow's Citizens Theatre from 1969 until he stepped down in 2003, one of the triumvirate of directors at the theatre, alongside Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald.

Rosemary Kilbourn is a Canadian printmaker, illustrator and stained glass artist known for her work in the wood engraving.

Cordelia Patrick Oliver was a Scottish journalist, painter and art critic, noted as an indefatigable promoter of Scottish arts in general and the avant-garde in particular.

Adrian Howells was a British performance artist associated with one-to-one performance and intimate theatre. He performed in the United Kingdom and internationally. He was a pioneer of one-to-one performance, in which an artist repeats and adapts a score for a performance for a single audience member, or audience-participant, and repeats the action serially across a run of several days. The process and outcomes in Howells' signature works were frequently modelled on activities associated with the service industries or the tertiary sector of the economy, such as washing the audience-participant's hair or clothes, or giving an audience-member a bath, replicating in some ways the labour of a hairdresser, laundry worker, or caregiver; or he appropriated and adapted intimate interpersonal experiences in carefully mediated situations, like talking around a script or score in a setting such as a Japanese rock garden in The Garden of Adrian (2009), or holding hands, listening to music, and spooning in silence in Held (2008).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Breck (actor)</span> Scottish actor

John Breck (John Doyle) (24 December 1953 – 8 January 1984) was a Scottish actor, of Irish-Italian parentage, born in Glasgow on 24 December 1953. His parents were Clara Zanotti Doyle and Alexander Doyle.

References

  1. ↑ "Overview: Philip Prowse". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Philip Prowse, b. 1937". National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  3. ↑ "The Citizens (Robert David MacDonald, 1929 - 2004; Philip Prowse, b. 1937; Giles Havergal, b. 1938)". National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  4. ↑ Coveney, Michael (24 May 2004). "Robert David MacDonald". The Guardian . Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  5. ↑ Jones, Sarah (28 June 2004). "Robert David MacDonald". The Independent . Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  6. ↑ Phedra [theatre programme]. Proscenium, for The Old Vic. 1984.
  7. ↑ "London The Old Vic Theatre - Phedra - 1984". Theatre Memorabilia .co.uk. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  8. ↑ "Theatre Costume, 1984, [by] Prowse, Philip". Victoria and Albert Museum . 17 February 1984. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  9. ↑ "Philip Prowse (Director)". National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  10. ↑ National Life Stories, 'Prowse, Philip (1 of 27) An Oral History of Theatre Design', The British Library Board, 2005. Retrieved 1 February 2018
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.