Frank Dunlop | |
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 Frank Dunlop in 2011 by Allan Warren | |
| Born | 15 February 1927 Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Occupation | Theatre director |
| Years active | 1954–present |
Frank Dunlop CBE (born 15 February 1927) is a British theatre director.
Frank Dunlop | |
|---|---|
| Frank Dunlop in 2011 by Allan Warren | |
| Born | 15 February 1927 Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Occupation | Theatre director |
| Years active | 1954–present |
Frank Dunlop CBE (born 15 February 1927) is a British theatre director.
Dunlop was born in Leeds, England to Charles Norman Dunlop and Mary Aarons. He was educated at Beauchamp College, read English at University College London where he is now a Fellow, and studied with Michel Saint-Denis at the Old Vic theatre school in London. [1]
Dunlop was appointed CBE in 1977 and received the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Literature presented to him by the French government in 1987. [a] [better source needed]
Dunlop founded and directed his own young theatre company, The Piccolo Theatre in Manchester (1954), and directed The Enchanted at the Bristol Old Vic in 1955 where, a year later, he became its resident director, writing and staging Les Frere Jacques. He made his West End debut at the Adelphi Theatre in 1960 with a production of The Bishop's Bonfire.
He took over the helm at the Nottingham Playhouse from 1961–1964, including the inaugural season of the newly built theatre in 1963, and then directed several plays in London, Oklahoma and Edinburgh. In 1966 he founded The Pop Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Festival, with productions of The Winter's Tale (also seen in Venice and London) and The Trojan Women.
Dunlop also produced the theatrical production of Oblomov, based on the novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov. The play opened at London's Lyric Theatre on 6 October 1964, and starred Spike Milligan as Oblomov, and Joan Greenwood as his wife Olga. The play ran for a record-breaking five weeks at the Lyric, before being retitled Son of Oblomov and moved to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End, with Dunlop once again the producer. [2]
In 1967, he joined the National Theatre as Associate Director, and worked as Administrative Director from 1968 to 1971, where he directed Home and Beauty (1968) The White Devil (1969) and The Captain of Köpenick starring Paul Scofield (1971).
While at the National, then located at the Old Vic, he took a crucial career step with the creation of The Young Vic in 1969. His productions for them included The Taming of the Shrew (1970); The Comedy of Errors (1971); Genet's The Maids , Deathwatch and The Alchemist (1972); an acclaimed revival of Rattigan's French Without Tears, and his own play Scapino (1974); and Macbeth (1975). The original, high camp production of Bible One: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat , starring Gary Bond, was created by him with the Young Vic company at the Edinburgh Festival in 1972, and transferred to the Round House in November 1972.
For the RSC in 1974 he directed a revival of William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes , starring John Wood, at the Aldwych Theatre in London, which then enjoyed a long run in New York; where he again directed Scapino , starring Jim Dale, also seen in Los Angeles, Australia and Norway.
Dunlop's other New York successes included Habeas Corpus (1975) and The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1978), During this period he founded and for two years ran the BAM Theatre Company, directing for them The New York Idea , Three Sisters , The Devil's Disciple , The Play's the Thing and Julius Caesar .
Back in England he directed Antony and Cleopatra starring iconic French actress Delphine Seyrig as Cleopatra for the Young Vic Theater (1976), Rookery Nook for the Birmingham Rep and the Theatre Royal Haymarket (1979), and returning to New York the following year he directed Camelot starring Richard Burton.
Dunlop was director of the Edinburgh International Festival for eight years from 1984−1991. [3] He inherited a deficit of £175,000, and said that he would not have taken on the job had he known about it. He had a difficult relationship with Edinburgh District Council, whose radical Labour administration railed against the Festival's "ingrained elitism". [4]
Dunlop made improvements to the representation of Scottish drama in the Festival programme. He revived Sir David Lyndsay's Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis , Sydney Goodsir Smith's The Wallace, and James Bridie's Holy Isle. He also directed Friedrich Schiller's Maria Stuart and a dramatisation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island . [5]
Dunlop received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1989 [6]
In 2001, Dunlop directed the world premiere of Ed Dixon's "Scenery" at Guild Hall, starring Emmy and Obie winner Marilyn Sokol and two-time Tony nominee Clive Revill. The production was produced by Steven Sendor. He has staged opera, including Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall, and in the summer of 2004 Jim Dale and William Atherton starred in the premiere of his adaptation of Kathrine Kressman Taylor's short epistolary novel Address Unknown at the Promenade Theatre on Broadway, again working with Steven Sendor as his producer.
National Life Stories conducted an interview (C1173/20) with Dunlop on his memories of Richard Negri in 2007 for its An Oral History of Theatre Design collection held by the British Library. [7]
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.
Joan Mary Waller Greenwood was an English actress. Her husky voice, coupled with her slow, precise elocution, was her trademark. She played Sibella in the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, and also appeared in The Man in the White Suit (1951), Young Wives' Tale (1951), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Stage Struck (1958), Tom Jones (1963) and Little Dorrit (1987).
Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE was a Scottish character actor who began his theatrical career at the age of thirty and quickly became established as a popular West End performer, remaining so until his death in 1976. Starting in 1935, he also appeared in more than fifty British films, including an iconic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol, released in 1951 as Scrooge in Great Britain and as A Christmas Carol in the United States. Though an accomplished dramatic actor, he is often remembered for his comically sinister performances.
Jim Dale is an English actor, composer, director, narrator, singer and songwriter. In the United Kingdom he is known as a pop singer of the 1950s who became a leading actor at the National Theatre. In British film, along with Angela Douglas and Jacki Piper he is now one of just a few surviving actors to star in multiple Carry On films.
Oblomov is the second novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, first published in 1859. Ilya Ilyich Oblomov is the central character of the novel, portrayed as the ultimate incarnation of the superfluous man, a symbolic character in 19th-century Russian literature. Oblomov is a young, generous nobleman who seems incapable of making important decisions or undertaking any significant actions. Throughout the novel, he rarely leaves his room or bed. In the first 50 pages, he only manages to move from his bed to a chair.
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Ian Charleson was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire. He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film Gandhi.
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The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth.
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Thomas Kelman Fleming, FRSAMD was a Scottish actor, director, and poet, and a television and radio commentator for the BBC.
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Scapino, also written Scapino!, is a 1974 play adapted by Jim Dale and Frank Dunlop from Les Fourberies de Scapin by Molière opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. A production by the Young Vic, it starred Jim Dale, Denise Coffey and Ian Trigger and was directed by Frank Dunlop. The production later moved to the Ambassador Theatre in New York.
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