Hytner, Nicholas

▪ 2005

      When Stuff Happens—David Hare's dissection of the Second Persian Gulf War, with U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, members of his administration, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the main characters—opened at the National Theatre (NT) in September 2004, it was only the latest in a string of diverse, innovative productions that Nicholas Hytner had brought to London audiences since assuming the theatre's artistic directorship in 2003. Beginning with shows ranging from William Shakespeare's Henry V with a black king to Jerry Springer—the Opera, complete with an assortment of sordid character types associated with its namesake's television program, and going on to such shows as Mourning Becomes Electra, Democracy, and a six-hour, two-play adaptation of the three young-adult books in Philip Pullman's (q.v. (Pullman, Philip )) His Dark Materials series—in addition to introducing new policies that guaranteed low-priced tickets for two-thirds of the seats in one of the NT theatres—he reinvigorated London's theatre scene and attracted new audiences to the complex on the South Bank of the River Thames.

      Nicholas Robert Hytner was born on May 7, 1956, in Didsbury, a suburb of Manchester, Eng., and was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He had first exhibited his interest in theatre when he performed in grammar-school productions, and at Cambridge he directed plays by Bertolt Brecht and became involved with the Cambridge Footlights Revue. After Cambridge he assisted in productions at English National Opera and worked in provincial theatres. Among those theatres was the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, where from 1985 to 1989 he served as associate director. In 1989 Hytner began his association with the NT (then the Royal National Theatre [RNT]), directing his first blockbuster hit, the Vietnam War-era musical Miss Saigon. From 1990 to 1997 he was associate director at the RNT, and during that time productions he directed included The Madness of George III (1991), whose film version, The Madness of King George (1994), marked Hytner's film directorial debut, and a hugely successful revival of Carousel (1992), whose subsequent Broadway run garnered five Tony Awards—a best director award for Hytner among them.

      Hytner also directed productions for television and for such companies as the Royal Shakespeare Company and English National Opera, and he counted The Crucible (1996) and The Object of My Affection (1998) among his film credits. Back in London in 1999, he directed the RNT's The Lady in the Van, and in 2000 he was named Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at the University of Oxford.

Barbara Whitney

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