Trevor Nunn

Last updated

Sir

Trevor Nunn

CBE
Born
Trevor Robert Nunn

(1940-01-14) 14 January 1940 (age 84)
Ipswich, Suffolk, England
Alma mater Downing College, Cambridge
Occupation Theatre director
Years active1960s–present
Spouses
(m. 1969;div. 1986)
Sharon Lee-Hill
(m. 1986;div. 1991)
(m. 1994;sep. 2011)
Children5, including Laurie and Ellie

Sir Trevor Robert Nunn CBE (born 14 January 1940) is an English theatre director. He has been the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal Haymarket. He has directed dramas for the stage, like Macbeth , as well as opera and musicals, such as Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985).

Contents

Nunn has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Musical, winning Tonys for Cats, Les Misérables, and Nicholas Nickleby and the Olivier Awards for productions of Summerfolk , The Merchant of Venice , Troilus and Cressida , and Nicholas Nickleby. In 2008 The Telegraph named him among the most influential people in British culture. [1] He has also directed works for film and television.

Early years

Nunn was born in Ipswich, England, to Dorothy May Piper and Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker . [2] As a small boy he loved reading but his parents had little money for books. However an aunt had more books, including the complete works of Shakespeare which he read whenever the family visited her. In the end his aunt gave it to him. [3]

He was educated at Northgate Grammar School, Ipswich, and Downing College, Cambridge. [4] At Northgate, he had an inspiring English teacher, Peter Hewett, who also directed the school plays. Hewett encouraged him to sit the scholarship exam in Cambridge in the hope of studying under F. R. Leavis at Downing. Hewett also persuaded the headmaster to help with the cost of Nunn staying in Cambridge to take the exam. Nunn's father could not afford it and the headmaster had refused at first so Nunn was close to giving up. [3] At Downing, Nunn began his stage career and first met contemporaries Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. [4] In 1962, he directed Macbeth for The Marlowe Society and he directed that year's Footlights. [5] He also won a director's scholarship, becoming a trainee director at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. [4]

Career

In 1964, Nunn joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and in 1968 he was appointed artistic director of the RSC, a position he held until 1986 (latterly with Terry Hands from 1978). [4]

His first wife, Janet Suzman, appeared in many of his productions, such as the 1974 televised version of his Antony and Cleopatra . [6] Nunn directed the RSC production of Macbeth starring Ian McKellen in the title role and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth in 1976. [7] Nunn staged the action of the drama with not only the paying audience, but also the audience of all of the actors in the production not in the ongoing scene—they sat on wooden crates just beyond the main playing space. [8]

Nunn became a leading figure in theatrical circles, and was responsible for many significant productions, such as the RSC's version of Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, co-directed with John Caird, [4] and a 1976 musical adaptation of the Shakespeare play The Comedy of Errors . [9] [10]

A director of musicals in the non-subsidised sector, Nunn directed Cats (1981), [11] formerly the longest running musical in Broadway's history, and the first English production of Les Misérables in 1985, also with John Caird, which ran in London until the summer of 2019. [4] [12] Nunn also directed the little-known 1986 Webber–Rice musical Cricket , at Windsor Castle. [13] Besides Cats and Les Misérables, Nunn's other musical credits include Starlight Express [14] and Sunset Boulevard . [15] He became artistic director of the Royal National Theatre in September 1997, [4] a position he retained until 2003.

Later London credits include My Fair Lady , [16] South Pacific (at the Royal National Theatre), [17] The Woman in White , [18] Othello and Acorn Antiques: The Musical! (2005), [19] The Royal Hunt of the Sun , Rock 'n' Roll [20] and Porgy and Bess in 2006 at the Savoy Theatre (an abridged version with dialogue instead of recitatives, unlike Nunn's first production of the opera). [21]

He directed We Happy Few, a play by his second wife Imogen Stubbs, in 2004. [22] Stubbs often appears in his productions, including the 1996 Twelfth Night film. Nunn directed a modern production of Shakespeare's Hamlet in 2004, which starred Ben Whishaw in the title role, and Imogen Stubbs as Gertrude, and was staged at The Old Vic theatre in London. [23]

In 2007, he directed the RSC productions of King Lear and The Seagull , which played at Stratford before embarking on a world tour (including the Brooklyn Academy of Music) and then playing at the New London Theatre from November 2007. The two plays both starred Ian McKellen, Romola Garai, Frances Barber, Sylvester McCoy, and William Gaunt. [24] Nunn's television production of King Lear was screened on Boxing Day, 2008 with McKellen in the title role. [25]

In 2008, he returned to the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry (the theatre where he started his career) to direct Joanna Murray-Smith's adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's film Scenes from a Marriage starring Imogen Stubbs and Iain Glen. [26] His musical adaptation of Gone with the Wind opened at the New London Theatre in April 2008 and, after poor reviews, closed on 14 June 2008 after 79 performances. [27] In December 2008, he directed a revival of A Little Night Music at the Menier Chocolate Factory, which transferred to the West End at the Garrick Theatre in 2009. [28] The production transferred to Broadway, opening in November 2009, with Catherine Zeta-Jones as Desiree Armfeldt and Angela Lansbury as Madame Armfeldt. Other members of the original London cast also transferred with the production. The production closed in January 2011 after 425 performances. [29]

In 2010, Nunn directed a revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Aspects of Love from July to September 2010 at the Menier Chocolate Factory [30] and the play Birdsong , which opened in September 2010 at the Comedy Theatre, based on the Sebastian Faulks novel of the same title. [31]

Nunn marked his debut as artistic director of the Theatre Royal Haymarket with a revival of Flare Path (as part of the playwright, Terence Rattigan's, centenary year celebrations). The production, starring Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith, opened in March 2011 and closed in June 2011, [32] and was followed by productions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead , (June–August 2011) [33] and The Tempest , starring Ralph Fiennes (September–October 2011). [34] His final production at the Haymarket, The Lion in Winter (November 2011 – January 2012), starred Joanna Lumley and Robert Lindsay. [35]

Nunn returned to the Haymarket in 2014 to direct the play Fatal Attraction . [36]

For Christmas 2018, Nunn directed a revival of Fiddler on the Roof at the Menier Chocolate Factory, before transferring to the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End for a limited season in spring 2019. The production starred Andy Nyman as Tevye and Judy Kuhn as Golde.

In 2020, he was due to direct a new musical Identical based on The Parent Trap . It was due to have its world premiere at the Nottingham Playhouse before transferring to the Theatre Royal, Bath, over the summer of 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the production was delayed until August 2022. [37]

Film and opera

Nunn has directed opera at Glyndebourne. He re-staged his Glyndebourne production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess for television in 1993, [4] and was highly praised. [38] [39]

He has directed for film, including Lady Jane (1986), Hedda , an adaptation of Hedda Gabler, and a 1996 film version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night . [40]

Personal life

Nunn has been married three times and has five children. He was married to actress Janet Suzman from 17 October 1969 until their divorce in 1986. They have one son, Joshua. [41] [42] From 1986 until their 1991 divorce, he was married to Sharon Lee-Hill, with whom he has two children, Laurie and Amy. [43] [44] [45]

In 1994, he married actress Imogen Stubbs with whom he has two children, Ellie and Jesse. [46] In April 2011 Stubbs announced their separation. [45]

Nunn was in a brief relationship with Nancy Dell'Olio in 2011. [47] [48]

In 1998, Nunn was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party. [49] In 2002, he was knighted. [44]

In 2014, Nunn told The Telegraph that Shakespeare was his religion. "Shakespeare has more wisdom and insight about our lives, about how to live and how not to live, how to forgive and how to understand our fellow creatures, than any religious tract. One hundred times more than the Bible. I'm sorry to say that. But over and over again in the plays there is an understanding of the human condition that doesn't exist in religious books." [50]

Credits

Broadway

Source: Internet Broadway Database [51]

West End

Source: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

Film

Source: Contemporary British and Irish Film Directors [40]

Television

Awards and nominations

YearNominee / workAwardResult
1975London AssuranceDrama Desk Award Unique Theatrical ExperienceWon
1977MacbethLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
1979 Once in a Lifetime Laurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
1980The Life and Adventures of Nicholas NicklebyLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorWon
1981CatsLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
1982The Life and Adventures of Nicholas NicklebyTony Award for Best Direction of a PlayWon
1983All's Well that Ends WellDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a PlayWon
1983All's Well that Ends WellTony Award for Best Direction of a PlayNominated
1983CatsTony Award for Best Direction of a MusicalWon
1987Les MisérablesTony Award for Best Direction of a MusicalWon
1987Starlight ExpressTony Award for Best Direction of a MusicalNominated
1989OthelloLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
1990Aspects of LoveTony Award for Best Direction of a MusicalNominated
1994ArcadiaLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
1995Sunset BoulevardDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a MusicalNominated
1995The Merchant of Venice / SummerfolkLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorWon
1995Sunset BoulevardTony Award for Best Direction of a MusicalNominated
1995Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement [53] [54] [55] Won
1999Not About Nightingales Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a Play Won
1999Not About NightingalesTony Award for Best Direction of a PlayNominated
1999Oklahoma!Laurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
2000Summerfolk / The Merchant of Venice / Troilus and CressidaLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorWon
2001 The Cherry Orchard Laurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated
2002 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding AchievementWon
2002Oklahoma!Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director of a MusicalNominated
2002Oklahoma!Tony Award for Best Direction of a MusicalNominated
2012Induction into the American Theater Hall of Fame [56] Won
2020Fiddler on the RoofLaurence Olivier Award for Best DirectorNominated

Sources: Internet Broadway Database, [51] Tony Awards Database (broadwayworld.com), [57] Drama Desk History, [58] Olivier Awards: Past Nominees and Winners [59]

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  55. "2019 Summit Highlights Photo". 2019. Theatrical director Sir Trevor Nunn presents the Golden Plate Award to award-winning novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan at the Banquet of the Golden Plate gala ceremonies during the International Achievement Summit.
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Further reading