John Gale (theatre producer)

Last updated

John Gale OBE (born 2 August 1929) [1] is an English theatrical producer and artistic director.

Contents

Life

Gale was born 2 August 1929, the son of Frank Haith Gale and Martha Edith Gale (née Evans). He attended Christ's Hospital and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1950, he married Liselotte Ann Wratten and they have two sons. He was originally an actor until he produced Inherit the Wind in London in 1960. [2] [3]

He was the producer of the long-running West End comedy No Sex Please, We're British , which ran at three different West End theatres from 1971 to 1987. [4]

He succeeded Patrick Garland as the sixth artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1985. He directed five Festival seasons until 1989. [5]

In 1986 Gale was executive producer for the Chichester Festival Theatre's first London revival of Irving Berlin's musical Annie Get Your Gun , starring Suzi Quatro as Annie Oakley and Eric Flynn as Frank Butler. [6]

Gale was executive producer on the 1993 recording of Robert & Elizabeth (Chichester Festival Cast). [7]

He was appointed OBE in the 1987 New Year Honours.

Related Research Articles

<i>Annie Get Your Gun</i> (musical) 1946 musical by Irving Berlin

Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music by Irving Berlin and a book by Dorothy Fields and her brother Herbert Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (1860–1926), a sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and her romance with sharpshooter Frank E. Butler (1847–1926).

Norman Newell was an English record producer, who was mainly active in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also the co-writer of many notable songs. As an A&R manager for EMI, he worked with musicians such as Shirley Bassey, Dalida, Claude François, Vera Lynn, Russ Conway, Bette Midler, Judy Garland, Petula Clark, Jake Thackray, Malcolm Roberts, Bobby Crush and Peter and Gordon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Dance</span> English actor

Walter Charles Dance is an English actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters and villains. Dance started his career on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) before appearing in film and television. For his services to drama he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006.

Declan Michael Martin Donnellan is an English film/stage director and author. He co-founded the Cheek by Jowl theatre company with Nick Ormerod in 1981. In addition to his Cheek by Jowl productions, Donnellan has made theatre, opera and ballet with a variety of companies across the world. In 1992, he received an honorary degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France. In 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of Goldsmiths' College, University of London. Donnellan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to theatre.

Michael John Attenborough is an English theatre director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chichester Festival Theatre</span> Theatre in Chichester, West Sussex, England

Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, it was opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. The smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989.

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

Sir John Selby Clements, CBE was a British actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film.

Gerald Harper is an English actor, best known for his work on television, having played the title roles in Adam Adamant Lives! (1966–67) and Hadleigh (1969–76). He then returned to his main love, the theatre. His classical work includes playing on Broadway with the Old Vic company, playing Iago at the Bristol Old Vic and Benedick at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Other plays in London included Crucifer of Blood at the Haymarket Theatre, House Guest, A Personal Affair, Suddenly at Home and Baggage. He has directed many plays, amongst them a production of Blithe Spirit in Hebrew at the Israeli National Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Summerstock Conservatory</span>

Summerstock Conservatory was a theatre company based out of Westmount Charter School in Calgary, Alberta from 2002 to 2012. Every year, between 1 and 14 August, high school and young post-secondary students from across Canada performed a play in Olympic Plaza.

Marilyn J. "Lynn" Farleigh is an English actress of stage and screen.

David Holliday was an American Broadway actor and television voice actor. He is best known as the voice of Virgil Tracy, pilot of Thunderbird 2, in the first series of Thunderbirds (1965–66).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Morahan</span> British director (1929–2017)

Christopher Thomas Morahan CBE was a British stage and television director and production executive.

David Hugh Jones was an English stage, television and film director.

Michael Rudman was an American theatre director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Lang (British actor)</span> British character actor

Harold Lang was a RADA-trained British character actor of stage and screen. During the 1950s, in particular, played many sly or menacing roles in B-films. At one time he managed his own theatrical company. From 1960, Lang, a devotee of Stanislavski, also taught acting at Central School of Speech and Drama; and director John Schlesinger filmed his work in a documentary, The Class, for BBC TV's Monitor, in 1961.

<i>Annie Get Your Gun – 1986 London Cast</i> 1986 cast recording by Suzi Quatro

Annie Get Your Gun – 1986 London Cast is an album from the first London revival of Irving Berlin's musical Annie Get Your Gun, starring American rock musician Suzi Quatro as Annie Oakley and Eric Flynn as Frank Butler. The revival was a David Gilmore Chichester Festival Theatre production. It toured in the UK and then moved to the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End.

Strife is a three-act play by the English writer John Galsworthy. It was his third play, and the most successful of the three. It was produced in 1909 in London at the Duke of York's Theatre, and in New York at the New Theatre. In the play, there is a prolonged unofficial strike at a factory; as the trade union and the company directors attempt to resolve the affair, which is causing hardship among the workers' families, there is a confrontation between the company chairman and the leader of the strike.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurier Lister</span>

George Laurier Lister, OBE was an English theatre writer, actor, director and producer, best known for a series of revues presented in London in the late 1940s and 1950s. He was later associated with Laurence Olivier in the West End and at the Chichester Festival. From 1964 to 1975 he was director and administrator of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford.

Village Theatre is a major regional theatre located in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is a member of Theatre Puget Sound and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. The theatre was founded in Issaquah, Washington, in 1979 and built a second location in Issaquah in 1994. Village Theatre was contracted by the City of Everett, Washington, in 1998 to be the resident performing and management company of the Everett Performing Arts Center.

Martin David Anson Duncan is an English director, actor, composer, and choreographer. Duncan was artistic director of Nottingham Playhouse from 1994 to 1999 and joint artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre from 2003 to 2005 with Ruth Mackenzie and Steven Pimlott. He has composed the musical scores for over 50 theatre productions.

References

  1. "Weekend birthdays". The Guardian . 2 August 2014. p. 51.
  2. "Gale, John, (born 2 Aug. 1929), theatre producer". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U16648. ISBN   978-0-19-954088-4 . Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  3. "John Gale". BFI. Archived from the original on 6 July 2018.
  4. "John Gale | Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
  5. "Interviewing Artistic Director, John Gale OBE – Pass It On". 8 May 2014.
  6. "First Night Records Online Store, Annie Get Your Gun - 1986 London Cast". first-night-records.co.uk. London, United Kingdom: First Night Records. Retrieved 13 June 2012.
  7. "Robert & Elizabeth (Chichester Festival Cast): Information from". Answers.com. 16 November 1993. Retrieved 10 June 2012.