Derek Goldby
Encyclopedia
Derek Goldby is an Australian-born theatre director who has worked internationally, particularly in Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States and France.
, Australia
. At the age of 5, his family emigrated to Great Britain
. He attended Dulwich College
in London
and Caius College in Cambridge
, England
. While at Caius, he directed a production of Arnold Wesker
's The Kitchen which led to his first professional job as Assistant Director at the Royal Court Theatre
in London.
, which was followed by a season at Harrowgate Theatre. The following two years he directed free-lance productions at Dundee, Bristol and Sheffield Repertory Companies, as well as at Stratford-on-Avon.
In 1963, Goldby directed Chips and Everything, then produced Twelfth Night and Tons of Money
at Her Majesty's, Barrow. Altogether, he directed 150 productions in these regional towns, including the English language premiere of Berthold Brecht's A day in the life of the great scholar Wu.
In 1966 Goldby became an assistant director to John Dexter
at the National Theatre of Great Britain (now the Royal National Theatre
) and worked on The Storm and Much Ado About Nothing
. At age 25, he became the youngest director that the National Theatre had had up to that time when he directed 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, but it was Goldby's 1967 National Theatre production at the Old Vic
that brought the play to international attention.
DELICATESSEN -with gillian barge Half Moon Theatre
FLARE PATH - Robin Nedwell at THe Kings Head
LES PARENTS TERRIBLES - with Sam West at the Orange Tree Theatre
IN THE SUMMER HOUSE - with Rosemary Harris at the Lyric theatre Hammersmith
, where it was nominated for eight Tony Awards and received four, including Best Play. Goldby went on to direct several other productions on Broadway, including Loot
by Joe Orton
, 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). In 1969, he was announced for a production of Harold Pinter
's The Homecoming
at the Guthrie Theater
in Minneapolis (but only made his debut at the Guthrie with The Merry Wives of Windsor
, from which he was eventually ousted). Already in 1968, he was announced as director for Bock and Harnick's long-gestating The Rothschilds but after out-of-town tryouts, was eventually replaced by Michael Kidd
.
Off-Broadway, Goldby directed Spitting Image by Colin Spencer
in 1969. After a long absence, Goldby returned to New York in 1991 to direct Brad Fraser
's Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
at the Orpheum Theatre.
, the Stratford Festival, the Tarragon Theatre
, CanStage, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and the National Theatre School. Among his 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. Other work includes 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. In Belgium, Goldby worked at Brussels
' Théâtre de Poche, where he directed, amongst other work, productions of Martin McDonagh
's The Lieutenant of Inishmore
and Simon Stephens
' Motortown.
IN PARIS; B29 with Richard Berry and Nils Arestrup at Theatre De la Porte St. Martin
TRAINSPOTTING at Le cafe de la danse
and Central School of Speech and Drama
, and directed a number of other plays including Autumn and Winter, by Lars Noren
, at the Orange Tree Theatre
.
at THEATRE DE POCHE ,Brussels : Lieutenant of Inishmore, Motortown, Colonel Bird,Entertaining Mr Sloane
Early life
Derek Goldby was born in AdelaideAdelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. At the age of 5, his family emigrated to Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. He attended Dulwich College
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is an independent school for boys in Dulwich, southeast London, England. The college was founded in 1619 by Edward Alleyn, a successful Elizabethan actor, with the original purpose of educating 12 poor scholars as the foundation of "God's Gift". It currently has about 1,600 boys,...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Caius College in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. While at Caius, he directed a production of Arnold Wesker
Arnold Wesker
Sir Arnold Wesker is a prolific British dramatist known for his contributions to kitchen sink drama. He is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings...
's The Kitchen which led to his first professional job as Assistant Director at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
in London.
Work in Britain
He left the Royal Court Theatre after one year to direct a repertory season at Barrow-in-FurnessBarrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...
, which was followed by a season at Harrowgate Theatre. The following two years he directed free-lance productions at Dundee, Bristol and Sheffield Repertory Companies, as well as at Stratford-on-Avon.
In 1963, Goldby directed Chips and Everything, then produced Twelfth Night and Tons of Money
Tons of Money
Tons of Money is a 1930 British comedy film directed by Tom Walls and starring Ralph Lynn, Yvonne Arnaud, Mary Brough, Robertson Hare and Gordon James. A debt-ridden inventor has to pretend to be his cousin to avoid his creditors...
at Her Majesty's, Barrow. Altogether, he directed 150 productions in these regional towns, including the English language premiere of Berthold Brecht's A day in the life of the great scholar Wu.
In 1966 Goldby became an assistant director to John Dexter
John Dexter
John Dexter was an English theatre, opera, and film director.- Theatre :Born in Derby, England, Dexter left school at the age of fourteen to serve in the British army during World War II. Following the war, he began working as a stage actor before turning to producing and directing shows for...
at the National Theatre of Great Britain (now the Royal National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
) and worked on The Storm and Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....
. At age 25, he became the youngest director that the National Theatre had had up to that time when he directed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by the then mostly unknown Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
. At that point, the play had been performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but it was Goldby's 1967 National Theatre production at the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
that brought the play to international attention.
DELICATESSEN -with gillian barge Half Moon Theatre
FLARE PATH - Robin Nedwell at THe Kings Head
LES PARENTS TERRIBLES - with Sam West at the Orange Tree Theatre
IN THE SUMMER HOUSE - with Rosemary Harris at the Lyric theatre Hammersmith
Work in the United States
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead went on to play on BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, where it was nominated for eight Tony Awards and received four, including Best Play. Goldby went on to direct several other productions on Broadway, including Loot
Loot (play)
Loot is a two-act play by the English playwright Joe Orton. The play is a dark farce that satirises the Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death, and the integrity of the police force....
by Joe Orton
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
, and Her First Roman
Her First Roman
Her First Roman is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Ervin Drake, based on the 1898 George Bernard Shaw play Caesar and Cleopatra.-Original production:...
, a musical based on Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Caesar and Cleopatra (for which Goldby was brought in late in rehearsals as a replacement director). In 1969, he was announced for a production of Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
's The Homecoming
The Homecoming
The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...
at the Guthrie Theater
Guthrie Theater
The Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...
in Minneapolis (but only made his debut at the Guthrie with The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life...
, from which he was eventually ousted). Already in 1968, he was announced as director for Bock and Harnick's long-gestating The Rothschilds but after out-of-town tryouts, was eventually replaced by Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer.-Life and career:Born Milton Greenwald in New York City on the Lower East Side, the son of Abraham Greenwald, an immigrant barber, and his wife Lillian, Michael Kidd moved to Brooklyn with his family and attended New Utrecht High School there...
.
Off-Broadway, Goldby directed Spitting Image by Colin Spencer
Colin Spencer
Colin Spencer is an English writer and artist who has produced a prolific body of work in a wide variety of mediums since his first published short stories and drawings appeared in The London Magazine and Encounter when he was 22...
in 1969. After a long absence, Goldby returned to New York in 1991 to direct Brad Fraser
Brad Fraser
Brad Fraser is a Canadian playwright, screenwriter and cultural commentator. He is one of the most widely produced Canadian playwrights both in Canada and internationally. Fraser's plays typically feature a harsh yet comical view of contemporary life in Canada, including frank depictions of...
's Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love is a 1989 stage play written by Canadian playwright Brad Fraser. Set in Edmonton, Alberta, the comedy-drama follows the lives of several sexually frustrated "thirty-somethings" who try to learn the meaning of love — during a time in which...
at the Orpheum Theatre.
International work
Goldby spent most of the 1980s in Canada, where he directed for the Shaw FestivalShaw Festival
The Shaw Festival is a major Canadian theatre festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the second largest repertory theatre company in North America...
, the Stratford Festival, the Tarragon Theatre
Tarragon Theatre
The Tarragon Theatre is a theatre in Toronto, Canada, and one of the main centers for contemporary playwriting in the country. Located near Casa Loma, the theatre was founded by Bill and Jane Glassco in 1970. Bill was the Artistic Director from 1971 to 1982. In 1982, Urjo Kareda took over as...
, CanStage, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and the National Theatre School. Among his work were several productions at the Shaw Festival, including Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau
Georges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic...
's A Flea in Her Ear
A Flea in Her Ear
A Flea in Her Ear is a play by Georges Feydeau written in 1907, at the height of the Belle Époque.-Plot:...
and a production of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....
, featuring comic actor Heath Lamberts
Heath Lamberts
Heath Lamberts, CM was a Canadian actor.He was born James Langcaster in Toronto, Ontario, where, as a boy, he won singing contests at school, allowing him to perform with Toronto's Opera Festival Association...
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. Other work includes productions of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski....
and August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
's the Father at the Tarragon Theatre; and productions of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at St. James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae in order to escape burdensome social obligations...
and Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
's Spring Awakening at CanStage. In Belgium, Goldby worked at Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
' Théâtre de Poche, where he directed, amongst other work, productions of Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh is an Irish-British playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in London his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.-Life:...
's The Lieutenant of Inishmore
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a black comedy by playwright Martin McDonagh, first produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London in 2001.-Plot:...
and Simon Stephens
Simon Stephens
Simon Stephens is an English playwright.Hailing originally from Stockport, Greater Manchester, he is now an increasingly significant voice in English theatre. His plays are often humane explorations of family life...
' Motortown.
IN PARIS; B29 with Richard Berry and Nils Arestrup at Theatre De la Porte St. Martin
TRAINSPOTTING at Le cafe de la danse
Since 2000
In the 2000s, Goldby worked in drama schools in England including RADA, Rose Bruford CollegeRose Bruford College
Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance is a British drama school, offering university-level and professional vocational training for theatre and performance and the BA and MA degrees, based in Sidcup, Southeast London.-History:Founded in 1950, Rose Bruford "pioneered the first acting degree...
and Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
, and directed a number of other plays including Autumn and Winter, by Lars Noren
Lars Norén
Lars Norén is a Swedish playwright, novelist and poet. He is considered Sweden's most prominent contemporary playwright of today.Born in Stockholm, Norén wrote his first play at age 19...
, at the Orange Tree Theatre
Orange Tree Theatre
The Orange Tree Theatre is a 172-seat theatre at 1 Clarence Street, Richmond in south west London, built specifically as a theatre in the round....
.
at THEATRE DE POCHE ,Brussels : Lieutenant of Inishmore, Motortown, Colonel Bird,Entertaining Mr Sloane
Thoughts on Theatre and Audiences
- "I enjoy directing. Since I was 16, I always knew I'd be a director."
- "I still enjoy working on
[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead] . it's still interesting because of what each new cast of actors brings to it. The text has in many ways the polished surface of metal. The values are verbal, like the plays of Wilde and Shaw, really. So I'm fascinated to see how actors respond to the challenge of the play. It has its own unique laws--unlike any other play in dramatic literature. Some people hate it."
- "
[Joe] Orton is our best social satirist since Jonathan Swift. 'Loot' tears apart the whole mystique of respectability and death, and does it with laughs. If Broadway audiences aren't sophisticated enough to accept it then there's no hope for the theater here...I couldn't expect your establishment critics to like it. After all, it's a left-wing play in a right-wing country."
- "It's not that I don't believe in the theater of shock, or the theater of purpose, or the theater of whatever. It's that I think we all need to be reminded of what people go to the theater for. People go to the theater basically--young and old--for an experience they can't get anywhere else. They want to laugh and cry."