Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
Sir Donald Wolfit, CBE was an English actor-manager, known for his touring wartime productions of Shakespeare. He was especially renowned for his portrayal of King Lear.
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE, was an English theatre, opera and film director. His 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".
Alexander Sutherland Neill was a Scottish educator and author known for his school, Summerhill, and its philosophy of freedom from adult coercion and community self-governance. Raised in Scotland, Neill taught at several schools before attending the University of Edinburgh in 1908–1912. He took two jobs in journalism before World War I, and taught at Gretna Green Village School in the second year of the war, writing his first book, A Dominie's Log (1915), as a diary of his life there as head teacher. He joined a Dresden school in 1921 and founded Summerhill on returning to England in 1924. Summerhill gained renown in the 1930s and then in the 1960s–1970s, due to progressive and counter-culture interest. Neill wrote 20 books. His top seller was the 1960 Summerhill, read widely in the free school movement from the 1960s.
Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike, Lady Casson was an English actress who toured internationally in Shakespearean productions, often appearing with her husband Lewis Casson. Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan specially for her, and she starred in it with great success. She was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1931, and Companion of Honour in 1970.
Sir Lewis Thomas Casson MC was an English actor and theatre director, and the husband of actress Dame Sybil Thorndike.
Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unofficial entertainments for his comrades in the army, he was appointed do so officially. After the war he produced and directed mostly in the West End. He staged premieres of plays by writers including J. M. Barrie, Noël Coward, John Galsworthy, Harley Granville-Barker and Somerset Maugham. He produced nearly 40 films, and directed 16, mainly in the 1930s, with stars including Gracie Fields.
Ernest George Harcourt Williams was an English actor and director. After early experience in touring companies he established himself as a character actor and director in the West End. From 1929 to 1934 he was director of The Old Vic theatre company; among the actors he recruited were John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. After directing some fifty plays he resigned the directorship of the Old Vic but continued to appear in the company's productions throughout the rest of his career. He appeared in thirty cinema and television roles during his later years.
Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic and broadcaster. He was the official biographer of Sir John Gielgud and wrote biographies of many other theatrical figures he had known, including Noël Coward. Nicholas Kenyon called him a "cultural omnivore" who was "genuinely popular with people".
"Speak the speech" is a famous speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601). In it, Hamlet offers directions and advice to a group of actors whom he has enlisted to play for the court of Denmark.
Pamela Margaret Stanley was a British actress who appeared in a number of stage and film roles in Britain and the United States; the role with which she became most identified with was that of Queen Victoria.
John Sayer Crawley was an English actor who, as Sayre Crawley, spent more than 40 years in American theatre playing roles on Broadway and at the Garden Theatre, among other venues.
John Goodwin was a British theatre publicist, writer and editor who played a crucial role in the development of subsidised theatre in post-war Britain; first with the Royal Shakespeare Company where in the 60s he led the media campaign against concerted attempts to close its flourishing London base; then with the Royal National Theatre where, as an associate director and member of its planning committee, he was a key figure in the administrative team which, in the '70s and '80s, shaped its historic first years on London's South Bank. He was the author of a number of books on the theatre including the best-selling A Short Guide to Shakspeare's Plays. He also edited and compiled the classic reference work British Theatre Design and edited the internationally best-selling diaries of Sir Peter Hall.
Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing is a book about the English boarding school Summerhill School by its headmaster A. S. Neill. It is known for introducing his ideas to the American public. It was published in America on November 7, 1960, by the Hart Publishing Company and later revised as Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood in 1993. Its contents are a repackaged collection from four of Neill's previous works. The foreword was written by psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who distinguished between authoritarian coercion and Summerhill.
Sir John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor and theatre director. He appeared on stage, television and radio and in film in a career that spanned eight decades. Film historian Brian McFarlane, writing for the British Film Institute, wrote of Gielgud that "in terms of the performing arts, it is no exaggeration to say that he towered over the century".
Fifty Years of Freedom: A Study of the Development of the Ideas of A. S. Neill is a 1972 intellectual biography of the British pedagogue A. S. Neill by Ray Hemmings. It traces how Homer Lane, Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud and others influenced Neill as he developed the "Summerhill idea", the philosophy of child autonomy behind his Summerhill School. The book follows Neill's early life and career in rural, Calvinist Scotland and continues through the influence of his mentors, Lane and Reich, and the origins of Summerhill after World War I. Written fifty years from Summerhill's founding, Fifty Years is a sociological and historical analysis of Neill's ideas in the context of intellectual and educational trends both during Neill's life and at the time of publication. Hemmings also surveyed progressive school leaders about Neill's impact on the field, and reported their perception of influence on teacher–pupil relations. Fifty Years was first published in England in 1972 by George Allen and Unwin, and was later renamed Children's Freedom: A. S. Neill and the Evolution of the Summerhill Idea for its 1973 American publication by Schocken Books.
Neill of Summerhill is a 1983 biography of the educator A. S. Neill and his Summerhill School written by Jonathan Croall and published by Knopf Doubleday.
The Constant Nymph is a play based on the 1924 novel of the same name by Margaret Kennedy. The stage version, adapted by Kennedy and the director Basil Dean, was first performed in London in 1926, starring Noël Coward, Edna Best and Cathleen Nesbitt. It portrays the love of two women for a young composer, and the conflicts that arise. The tragic ending has the younger of the two – a teenager – die of heart failure.
Raymond Mander and Joe Mitchenson were theatre historians and joint founders of a large collection of theatrical memorabilia.
