Trevor Nunn | |
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Born | Trevor Robert Nunn 14 January 1940 Ipswich, Suffolk, England |
Occupation | Theatre Director |
Years active | 1960s-present |
Spouse | Janet Suzman (1969-86; divorced) Sharon Lee-Hill (1986-91; divorced) Imogen Stubbs (1994-2011; separated) |
Partner | Nancy Dell'Olio (2011-present) |
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE (born 14 January 1940) is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera. His well-known musicals are Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985). His dramas include Nicholas Nickleby and Macbeth. He 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 the Tony Award (Musical) for Les Misérables and the Olivier Award for Summerfolk / The Merchant of Venice / Troilus and Cressida; and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.
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Nunn was born in Ipswich, England, to Robert Alexander Nunn, a cabinetmaker, and Dorothy May Piper.[1] He was educated at Northgate Grammar School, Ipswich and Downing College, Cambridge, where he began his stage career. He won a Director's Scholarship, becoming a trainee director at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry in 1962.[2]
In 1964 Nunn joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and in 1968 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a position he held until 1986.[2] He became Artistic Director of the Royal National Theatre in September 1997.[2]
His first wife, Janet Suzman, appeared in many of his productions, such as the 1974 televised version of his Antony and Cleopatra.[3] Nunn became a leading figure in theatrical circles, and was responsible for many ground-breaking productions, such as the RSC's version of Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, co-directed with John Caird,[2] and a 1976 musical adaptation of the Shakespeare play The Comedy of Errors.[4][5]
A very successful director of musicals, in the non-subsidised sector, Nunn directed the musical Cats (1981),[6] formerly the longest running musical in Broadway's history, and the first English production of Les Misérables in 1985, also with John Caird, which has been running continuously in London since opening.[2][7] Nunn also directed the little-known 1986 Webber–Rice musical Cricket, at Windsor Castle.[8] Besides Cats and Les Misérables Nunn's other musical credits include Starlight Express[9] and Sunset Boulevard.[10] Later London credits include My Fair Lady,[11] South Pacific (at the Royal National Theatre),[12]The Woman In White,[13]Othello and Acorn Antiques The Musical (2005),[14]The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Rock 'n' Roll[15] 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).[16]
Nunn directed the RSC production of Macbeth starring Ian McKellen in the title role and Dame Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth in 1976.[17] 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.[18]
He directed his wife's (Imogen Stubbs), play We Happy Few in 2004.[19] 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.[20]
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.[21] Nunn's television production of King Lear was screened on Boxing Day, 2008 with McKellen in the title role.[22]
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.[23] 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.[24] 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.[25] 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.[26]
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[27] and the play Birdsong, which opened in September 2010 at the Comedy Theatre, based on the Sebastian Faulks novel of the same title.[28]
Nunn marked his debut as Artistic Director of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, with a revival of Flare Path (as part of the playwright, Terrence Rattigan's, centenary year celebrations). The production, starring Sienna Miller, James Purefoy and Sheridan Smith, opened in March 2011 and closed in June 2011,[29] and was followed by productions of Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, (June - August 2011)[30] and The Tempest, starring Ralph Fiennes (September - October 2011).[31] His final production at the Haymarket, The Lion in Winter (November 2011 - January 2012), stars Joanna Lumley and Robert Lindsay.[32]
Nunn has directed opera at Glyndebourne. He re-staged his highly successful Gyndebourne production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess for television in 1993,[2] and was highly praised.[33][34]
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.[35]
Nunn has been married three times. He was married to actress Janet Suzman from October 17, 1969 until their divorce in 1986. They have one child, Joshua. The Times reported in April 1986: "Janet Suzman, aged 47, the actress, was granted a divorce in London yesterday from Trevor Nunn, aged 46, the theatre director ... They have a son, Joshua, aged five."[36][37] He has another two children, Laurie and Amy, with his second wife, Sharon Lee-Hill; they divorced in 1991. According to The Times, "Trevor Nunn, the theatre director, was divorced yesterday by his wife Sharon Lee Hill."[38][39][40]
In 1994, Nunn married actress Imogen Stubbs with whom he has two children, Ellie and Jesse. The Press Association reported on September 18, 1994: "Director Trevor Nunn and actress Imogen Stubbs, who wed in secret at a London register office on Saturday, had their marriage blessed today in a low-key service at a village church."[41] In April 2011 Stubbs announced that she and Sir Trevor were to separate.[40]
He was knighted in 2002.[39]
In 1998 Nunn was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party (UK).[42]
Source: Internet Broadway Database Listing[43]
Source: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust[44]
Source: Contemporary British and Irish film Directors[35]
Sources: Internet Broadway Database Listing[43] Tony Awards Database (broadwayworld.com)[45] Drama Desk History[46] Olivier Awards, Past Nominees and Winners[47]
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“Hava Nagila” (הבה נגילה Havah Nagilah, "Let us rejoice") is an Israeli folk song traditionally sung at Jewish celebrations. It is perhaps the first modern Israeli folk song in the Hebrew language that has become a staple of band performers at Jewish weddings and bar/bat mitzvah celebrations. It was composed in the 1920s in the British Mandate of Palestine, at a time when Hebrew was first being revived as a spoken language for the first time in almost 2,000 years (since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD). For the first time, Jews were being encouraged to speak Hebrew as a common language, instead of Yiddish, Arabic, Ladino, or other regional Jewish languages.
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, a professor at Hebrew University, began cataloging all known Jewish music and teaching classes in musical composition; one of his students was a promising cantorial student, Moshe Nathanson, who (with the rest of his class) was presented by the professor with a 19th-century, slow, melodious, chant (niggun or nigun) and assigned to add rhythm and words to fashion a modern Hebrew song. There are competing claims regarding Hava Nagila's composer, with both Idelsohn and Nathanson being suggested.
Hava Nagila by Party Animals
Check!
Clap your hands now
Here we go again!
(Lalala...)
One, two, three, clap
(Lalala...)
Givin' him away
Givin' him away
Givin' him away the bassdrum
Hit it like this, y'all
One, two
One, two, three, huh!
(Lalala...)
Givin' him on the bassdrum
Hit it like this, y'all
One, two, three, check!
Make it faster
Givin' him away
Givin' him away
Givin' him away the bassdrum
Check!
Take it down, y'all