lit productions worldwide – from Copenhagen to Cape Town.
Having trained at LAMDA, he started his career by assisting directors such as
Alan Ayckbourn, Eric Thompson, Frank Hauser and Michael Blakemore;
however, he has been directing plays in his own rite since the age of 17.
In the first 10 years of his career Hugh directed more than 60 productions in
London and throughout the UK – from Alan Ayckbourn to Rene de Obaldia,
and Pam Gems to Athol Fugard. He was a resident director at the Haymarket
Theatre, Leicester; the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead, and the Old Vic
Theatre, London.
During the next 10 years, he ran his own multi-media company, The Jolly
Good Production Company, which produced plays and TV programmes,
managed artistes and published books. During this time he was also
responsible for music programmes and programming in the ITV network,
specifically in the south and south east of England. He also directed
international tours of Jesus Christ Superstar and The Rocky Horror Show as
well as national tours of plays by Noël Coward, Daphne du Maurier and
Dylan Thomas.
He has directed and supervised Theatre Events such as
THE MUSIC OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER IN CONCERT for The Really
Useful Group world-wide, AN EVENING WITH ALAN JAY LERNER
for The Jolly Good Production Company London, New York, Cardiff,
Birmingham, AN EVENING WITH TIM RICE for The Holders Season,
Barbados and much more.
He has specialised in devising, directing and producing large-scale events
around the world including the Richard Rodgers Award celebrating Andrew
Lloyd Webber in Pittsburgh, An Evening with Hal Prince in Munich,
Sondheim Tonight in New York, and Who Could Ask For Anything More? –
the centenary celebration of Ira Gershwin at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
With Trevor Nunn he co-directed the Golden Wedding Anniversary
celebrations for Her Majesty the Queen.
Since 1999, he has annually produced, devised and directed The Night of 1000
Voices at the Royal Albert Hall, London. He has also directed many
showcase, workshops and first productions of new writing, and has been
much in demand helping others to improve their own productions.
I'm so grateful to you dear Hugh, I wish you all the best and you know here
you have a truly friend.
Sandra - What are the main difficulties directing a large-scale musical event?
Hugh - Large-scale music events are similar to military operations. Both use
large groups of people. Everything needs to be carefully planned in advance.
If it works on paper, it will work in the theatre, stadium or concert hall.
Leave nothing to chance, time every piece of music and make up a show CD;
write and time all the spoken words. Make sure everyone has a copy of the
script and that they adhere to it. In this way, all the technical departments
will know exactly what is going on, too. The best thing to remember is that
everyone, in every department, is wanting to give of their best, too; so learn to
trust them and don’t become too worried.
Sandra - What have been your experiences working with great musical
composers and lyricists like Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Stephen
Sondheim, Alan Jay Lerner?
Hugh - Anyone who has worked in the same profession for over twenty-five
years deserves respect. The fact that these gentlemen have been at the top of
their respective fields for so long shows that they have a lot to offer the
experienced and the newcomer alike. Ignore them at your peril. Andrew
Lloyd Webber is now extremely busy with a myriad of different adventures
so he may not be in the rehearsal room as often as he would like, but when he
comes into a room and watches what is going on, his comments are
extraordinarily perspicacious and right to the point. You don’t ignore these.
Tim Rice works hard but shows it’s possible to have fun, too. We have
worked on several productions together and they have always been extremely
relaxed but extraordinarily high quality affairs, too. Stephen Sondheim is a
stickler for text; with him a director must know what every sentence, word
and syllable means before facing a company of actors for the first time. But I
was lucky, I learnt this when I was learning with the great directors Frank
Hauser and Michael Blakemore. Alan Jay Lerner was my guru – my father
figure and big brother. I recommend his books, especially The Street Where I
Live, to anyone who is interested in the role of the director. Alan gave me
several wonderful bits of advice, but the two most pertinent might be ‘only
work with the people you like’ and then, ‘the closer the friendship, the tighter
the contract’. In other words, always make sure exactly what has been agreed
is in writing when working with friends. Never be ashamed to listen to
people with experience. They have found a way to work in this increasingly
difficult profession. You might learn something, too.
Sandra - You have produced and directed musical spectacles on TV and in the
theatre, what are the main differences between the two? Which do you prefer?
Hugh - It would have to be theatre every time. Having made many music TV
programmes early in my career, I was always sad not to have a closeness and
immediate contact with the people I was working with. Once you leave the
rehearsal room, as a director, you are locked away in a darkened control room
and the only contact you have with your artistes is via a talk-back system with
your floor manager. And between you and your artiste will always be an
electronic box of tricks, the camera. In the live theatre, the relationship with
an actor or actress is much closer. You live and breathe the same air together;
you share the same audience. If someone coughs in the auditorium, you hear
it at the same time. As a director in the theatre, I can make an audience focus
on whatever part of the stage I want them to; but the audience also has the
choice to look anywhere they want to. A close-up or a long-shot. On
television, the director forces to audience to watch only what they have in
mind. The audience is not allowed to choose.
Sandra - Of the shows you have produced or directed, which do you
remember in a special way? Why?
Hugh - Every show has its own special memories. So that would be too long
an answer for here. But I do remember the 1986 London production of An
Evening with Alan Jay Lerner at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. Liz
Robertson, Alan Jay Lerner’s widow, had asked Placido Domingo to headline
this show – as an early role for him had been as an understudy of Freddy
Eynsford Hill in the first Mexican production of My Fair Lady. But tragically
there had been an earthquake in Domingo’s home town and, scrabbling in the
dust with his fellow emergency workers, had damaged his vocal chords and
he had taken time off to protect his voice. No-one thought that he would turn
up for our show. So as to allay the audiences fears, I decided to put him on
early in the first half singing with three other Freddys, On The Street Where
You Live. To make matters more complicated I decided to ask him to sing in
Spanish (we were making a recording and the record company who handled
his English text recordings would not give permission), and I asked him to
start singing off-stage à la Curly in Oklahoma! As the moment approached for
his surprise entrance, I thought had I told the sound operator to turn on his
mike off-stage? Would they turn it on too soon and we’d hear him clearing
his throat in the wings? This was a ghastly moment… But then, because
everything had been planned and written down (see above), Placido sang
from off-stage and entered to massive applause. Phew! Incidentally this
moment can be heard on the First Night record, An Evening With Alan Jay
Lerner.
Sandra - Do you have any good anecdotes after all these years as a director?
Hugh - Oh yes. Many, many, many.
Sandra - When did you first begin to feel passion towards the musicals?
Hugh - Good question, I’m not sure. I know I turned down seeing the
original London production of Oliver as I thought it was too cissy and only
for girls when I was 11. So it must be sometime after then. I remember
seeing Jesus Christ Superstar when I was fifteen and that was so exciting that
I thought this must be the sort of show I want to direct… I also knew I
wanted to be a director at about that time because an enlightened teacher
asked me to direct a play at school. And an even more enlightened
schoolmaster wrote a nice review. Maybe it was a combined conspiracy to
stop me acting – I was truly dreadful as an actor… (PS I have now directed 11
productions of Jesus Christ Superstar.)
Sandra - In what way were you involved with The Phantom of the Opera
play / movie and what memories do you have?
Hugh - I first started working with Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1975. Ha had
written with Alan Ayckbourn a musical version of the P G Wodehouse
stories, Jeeves. It was not a success but our friendship has lasted to this day.
For twenty five years I helped Andrew run his Sydmonton Festival – from
hanging curtains at midnight with the future producer of Mamma Mia!, Judy
Craymer, to directing the first ever workshop of Cats with Gary Bond,
Gemma Craven and Paul Nicholas. During this time I lit the first concert
performance of songs from The Phantom of the Opera sung by Colm
Wilkinson. In those days, rather than giving him a mask, I brightly lit him
from one side only so half his face was always in deep shadow; then I was
around as the production went to London and eventually New York. I had
been working with Sarah Brightman quite a lot by this time (I had previously
directed her in the Charles Strouse opera, Nightingale) and she asked for me
to be in her eyeline out in the front row at the NY premiere. I sat there,
grinning like a hyena, willing her on. Finally, two or three years ago, Andrew
asked me to direct a workshop of Ben Elton’s draft script for the movie of The
Phantom of the Opera. I think he knew at that time that it wasn’t quite right
but he wanted to see it on its feet. So Michael Reed, the distinguished
London musical director, and I staged the film-script in a few days. I think
most of the actors were surprised to see Andrew’s by-now-ex-wife, Sarah
Brightman, sitting in the front row making notes… Of course, I was
delighted to stage my own version of the songs from The Phantom of the
Opera when I directed the original Canadian and US productions of The
Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber in Concert. And guess what? I lit the
Phantom in deep shadow with sharp lighting from one side as I had
originally done in the tiny Sydmonton theatre some five years earlier.
Sandra - As a professional and specialist in the musical world, what do you
think about the worldwide success of The Phantom of the Opera in the last 20
years?
Hugh - Absolutely delighted. Hal Prince and the original creators made a
wonderful production which still deserves to be widely seen. Las Vegas, here
I come!
Sandra - From what novel, subject or idea, which never has became a musical,
would you love to produce, create or direct?
Hugh - Good question. I adapted Rebecca as a straight play but that is now
being produced in Vienna in a new musical version by Michael Kunze and
Sylvester Levay, so that idea is out. I am currently working on a musical
version of the British novelette by A R Dick, The Ghost And Mrs Muir. But
my other ideas are secrets, you wouldn’t want me to give them away here,
would you?
Sandra - Tell us about your upcoming projects.
Hugh - In 1999 I started a sequence of concerts in London called The Night of
1000 Voices (www.thenightof1000voices.com). In 2007 we are saluting John
Kander and Fred Ebb at the Royal Albert Hall, London on May 6. Prior to that
I shall be directing another version of An Evening With Tim Rice, hosted by
the lyricist at the Holders Season in Barbados (www.holders.net). In 2008 we
are hoping to present the first US version of The Night of 1000 Voices in
Phoenix, Arizona.
Please, don't copy this text and photos without my permission.
Copyright by Hugh Wooldridge and Ladyghost.
