Peter Gill's Background
Peter Gill was born in 1939 September 7 and raised in Cardiff, Wales. He was educated at St Illtyd's College, Cardiff. He lived from the 1960s until 2006 in a small flat in the Thameside house formerly belonging to George Devine and later bought by playwright Donald Howarth and his civil partner George Goetschuis.
Gill was an actor from 1957-1965, he then directed his first production in August 1965 at The Royal Court Theatre. Having begun his career as an actor, he is now best known for his work as a director and playwright. He became an Assistant Director of the Royal Court Theatre in 1964 and then an Associate Director in 1970. He was the founder director of Riverside Studios in 1976. From 1980 to 1997, he was the Associate Director of the National Theatre and also the founding Director of the Royal National Theatre Studio in 1984 to 1990.
National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview with Peter Gill in 2008 & 2009 for its "The Legacy of the Englis Stage Company" collection held by the British Library.
Many directors in the generations after Gill's including Sam Mendes, Nicholas Hytner and Richard Eyre have become wealthy from putting on songs and dance shows. So does he ever feel a twinge of envy? This is what he said "I'd like the money. But I wouldn't like to do a musical under the thumb of Cameron Mackintosh. I wouldn't have the competence. I'd simply have to do what I was told, which isn't directing."
Informations from link below:
History of the Royal Court Theatre
I did my presentation base on this title. Here are all the research from me.The first theatre on Lower George Street was opened in 1870 under the name of The New Chelsea Theatre. Several of early plays by William.S.Gilbert (an English dramatist) were staged here including Randall's Thumb, Creatures of Impulse. After that, Arthur Cecil (who had joined the theatre's company in 1881) was co-manager of the theatre with John Clayton. They produced a series of Arthur Wing Pinero's farces, including The Magistrate (1885) and The Schoolmistress (1886), among others. The theatre closed in 1887 and was demolished.
The present building was built on the East side of Sloane Square replacing the earlier building and opened in 1888 as the New Court Theatre. The first production in the new building was a play by Sydney Grundy titled Mamma.
By the end of the century, the theatre was called "Royal Court Theatre". It ceased to be used as a theatre in 1932 but was used as a cinema from 1935 to 1940, until it was forced to close due to serious damage caused by bombs during the World War II.
The building reopened as a theatre in 1952 and was taken over by the English Stage Company (ESC) in 1956. Royal Court became a subsidized theatre producing new British and foreign plays, together with some classical revivals.
In the early 90s, the main auditorium and the facade of the theatre were attractive, but the remainder of the building provided poor facilities for both audience and performers, the stalls and understage often flooded throughout the 20th century.
The theatre was on the brink of contravening health and safety regulations and guidelines, it had deteriorated dangerously and was threatened with closure. The Court was told that, within eighteen months, the building would be forced to close. In the same week as the New York Times described the Royal Court as the most important theatre in Europe, The Times called the building a 'DUMP'. One year later, the interior of the theatre was completely built, except for the facade and the auditorium, and reopened in the year 2000.
The Royal Court also presented two of Peter Gill's first plays, The Sleeper's Den (1965) and Over Gardens Out (1969) which were both written and directed by himself. Peter Gill also directed stories and plays from Chekhov and D.H.Lawrence.
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