Derek Goldby
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Derek Goldby (born 1940) is an Australian-born theatre director who has worked internationally, particularly in Canada, Belgium, England, the United States and France.
In 1966 Goldby was an assistant director to John Dexter at the National Theatre of Great Britain (now the Royal National Theatre) when he persuaded then Artistic Director Laurence Olivier to let him direct Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by the then mostly unknown Tom Stoppard. At that point, the play had been performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it had been noticed and praised by critic Ronald Bryden, but it was Goldby's 1967 National Theatre production at the Old Vic that brought the play to international attention. The production was critical and popular success in London, and it went on to play on Broadway, where it was nominated for eight Tony Awards and received four, including Best Play. Goldby went on to direct several other shows on Broadway, including Loot by Joe Orton, and two musicals, The Rothschilds and Her First Roman, a musical based on Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (for which Goldby was brought in late in rehearsals as a replacement director).[1]
Goldby spent most of the 1980s in Canada, where he directed for the Shaw Festival, the Stratford Festival, the Tarragon Theatre, CanStage, Theatre de Quat'Sous and the National Theatre School. Among his most notable work were several productions at the Shaw Festival, including Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear and a production of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, featuring comic actor Heath Lamberts in the title role, which played at The Shaw in 1982 and 1983, and which was revived for a run at the Royal Alexandra theatre in 1985; productions of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and August Strindberg's The Father at the Tarragon Theatre; and productions of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Frank Wedekind's Spring Awakening at CanStage. Goldby's work in this period was noted for its precision of timing and clarity of style, whether in the form of the savage and manic tone of A Flea in Her Ear, or in the delicate, quiet and melancholy overtones of Uncle Vanya.[2]
In the mid-1990s, Goldby left Canada to return to England, from which base he has continued to work at various theatres in London, Paris, Tel Aviv, and frequently in Brussels, particularly at Theatre de Poche.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ IBDB; conversation with Derek Goldby
- ^ Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia; personal observation
- ^ Derek Goldby CV at PFD
