Sir Peter Hall is a distinguished director of plays, films and operas. Born in Bury St. Edmunds, he attended Perse School and St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

He created the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1960 and opened its first London home at the Aldwych Theatre. Productions for the RSC included The Wars Of The Roses, David Warner’s Hamlet, The Government Inspector with Paul Scofield and premieres of plays by Pinter, Albee and Simon Gray.

Peter Hall became Director of the Royal National Theatre in 1973. He spent 15 years with the Company and moved it into the new theatres on the South Bank. Prominent productions for the RNT included Pinter’s No Man’s Land (with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson); Tambourlaine The Great with Albert Finney; Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn; Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus with Paul Scofield; Aeschylus’s Oresteia and Anthony And Cleopatra with Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins. He recently directed Euripides’ Bacchai for the RNT, on tour and at the Athens Festival in Epidaurus.

He has directed operas all over the world and was Artistic Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera from 1984-90.

In 1988 he launched the Peter Hall Company which mounted more than 30 productions in London, New York, Europe and Australia including a landmark season at The Old Vic. The Peter Hall Company’s most recent productions were The Royal Family starring Judi Dench and Lady Windermere’s Fan starring Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson, both at Theatre Royal Haymarket. He is currently rehearsing Shaw’s MRS. Warren’s Profession with Brenda Blethyn, which opens at the Strand Theatre in October 2002.

Peter Hall directs regularly in the U.S. His celebrated production of John Barton’s ten hour epic Tantalus premiered at the Denver Center for Performing Arts before a sell out London season at the Barbican and UK tour. In all, Peter Hall has directed over 200 major theatre productions.

Peter Hall has received two Tony Awards for The Homecoming and Amadeus and an Olivier Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999. In 1977 Peter Hall was knighted for his services to the theatre. He is a Patron of Masterclass.

Films include: Work is a Four Letter Word; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Three into Two Won’t Go; Perfect Friday; The Homecoming; Akenfield; She’s Been Away; Orpheus Descending; The Camomile Lawn and The Final Passage.

Books include: Peter Hall’s Diaries (1983); Making an Exhibition of Myself (1993); The Necessary Theatre (1999) and Exposed by the Mask (2000). Peter Hall holds the Wortham Chair in Performing Arts at Houston University and is Chancellor of London’s Kingston University.