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David Edgar: Birmingham Rep and me David Edgar: Birmingham Rep and me
(7 months later)
In a sense, I owe Birmingham Rep everything: my parents met on the stage-door steps. As a young acting student, my mother was following her mother – Isabel Thornton, the leading female character actor of the interwar period – into the Station Street theatre. Then, in 1946, my aunt, Nancy Burman, joined the Rep's founder Barry Jackson as production manager during his tenure at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford, returning with him to Birmingham in 1948.In a sense, I owe Birmingham Rep everything: my parents met on the stage-door steps. As a young acting student, my mother was following her mother – Isabel Thornton, the leading female character actor of the interwar period – into the Station Street theatre. Then, in 1946, my aunt, Nancy Burman, joined the Rep's founder Barry Jackson as production manager during his tenure at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford, returning with him to Birmingham in 1948.
The family connection was a help to me as a child playgoer: on my first visit to the theatre, at three and three-quarters, I was so terrified by Beauty and the Beast that I had to be removed from the auditorium and taken backstage to meet the Beast actor in his dressing room. Sadly, the device failed: back in the auditorium, on the Beast's next entrance, I screamed the place down. But, by the next Christmas, I'd got the point that it was all pretend, and decided that I wanted to devote my life to the theatre.The family connection was a help to me as a child playgoer: on my first visit to the theatre, at three and three-quarters, I was so terrified by Beauty and the Beast that I had to be removed from the auditorium and taken backstage to meet the Beast actor in his dressing room. Sadly, the device failed: back in the auditorium, on the Beast's next entrance, I screamed the place down. But, by the next Christmas, I'd got the point that it was all pretend, and decided that I wanted to devote my life to the theatre.
Having overseen Graham Winteringham's proudly modernist design for the new Rep building in Broad Street, my aunt retired in 1964. After its opening in 1971, I wrote the second show for the new theatre's 100-seater studio and in 1975 wrote a play – for a now inconceivable cast of 15 – set simultaneously in 1948 (foundation of the NHS) and 1358 (outbreak of the Black Death). A piece I wrote three years later about a schizophrenic woman journeying through madness in a 1960s therapeutic community, Mary Barnes, had a cast of 13, starred Patti Love and Simon Callow, launched Timothy Spall and transferred to London's Royal Court.Having overseen Graham Winteringham's proudly modernist design for the new Rep building in Broad Street, my aunt retired in 1964. After its opening in 1971, I wrote the second show for the new theatre's 100-seater studio and in 1975 wrote a play – for a now inconceivable cast of 15 – set simultaneously in 1948 (foundation of the NHS) and 1358 (outbreak of the Black Death). A piece I wrote three years later about a schizophrenic woman journeying through madness in a 1960s therapeutic community, Mary Barnes, had a cast of 13, starred Patti Love and Simon Callow, launched Timothy Spall and transferred to London's Royal Court.
By now storm clouds were gathering. Fear of box-office disaster was the ostensible reason why the board forbade artistic director Michael Simpson from producing my play about the rise of the National Front, Destiny, in 1976 (happily, the play proved a success for the RSC at Stratford's Other Place and then at the Aldwych in London). And in the time I spent on the board from 1988 to 1994, economic constraints crowded out artistic aspiration all too frequently. Despite this, directors such as Bill Alexander collaborated with Ruari Murchison and other designers to take full command of the Rep's huge stage – in Shakespeare, new plays (most notably Bryony Lavery's masterpiece Frozen) and, in my case, a chillingly epic 1996 revival of my adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde.By now storm clouds were gathering. Fear of box-office disaster was the ostensible reason why the board forbade artistic director Michael Simpson from producing my play about the rise of the National Front, Destiny, in 1976 (happily, the play proved a success for the RSC at Stratford's Other Place and then at the Aldwych in London). And in the time I spent on the board from 1988 to 1994, economic constraints crowded out artistic aspiration all too frequently. Despite this, directors such as Bill Alexander collaborated with Ruari Murchison and other designers to take full command of the Rep's huge stage – in Shakespeare, new plays (most notably Bryony Lavery's masterpiece Frozen) and, in my case, a chillingly epic 1996 revival of my adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde.
In recent years Birmingham Rep has staged an increasing amount of new work, both in the studio and in the main space, much of it expressing the diversity of the city that surrounds it. The lesson of the Alexander period – well learned by his followers – is that vast stages require vast ambition. Like Simon Rattle and his successors at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Rep's artistic directors have achieved most when they've followed in the footsteps of the theatre's founder and stuck to their guns.In recent years Birmingham Rep has staged an increasing amount of new work, both in the studio and in the main space, much of it expressing the diversity of the city that surrounds it. The lesson of the Alexander period – well learned by his followers – is that vast stages require vast ambition. Like Simon Rattle and his successors at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Rep's artistic directors have achieved most when they've followed in the footsteps of the theatre's founder and stuck to their guns.
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