Terry Hands

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

English theatre director (1941–2020)

title: "Terry Hands" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1941-births", "2020-deaths", "academics-of-the-university-of-glamorgan", "alumni-of-the-royal-academy-of-dramatic-art", "alumni-of-the-university-of-birmingham", "businesspeople-from-aldershot", "commanders-of-the-order-of-the-british-empire", "drama-desk-award-winners", "english-people-of-german-descent", "english-theatre-directors", "laurence-olivier-award-winners", "shakespearean-directors"] description: "English theatre director (1941–2020)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Hands" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary English theatre director (1941–2020) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameTerry Hands
imageTerry Hands.png
captionHands in 1972
birth_nameTerence David Hands
birth_date
birth_placeAldershot, Hampshire, England
death_date
death_placeLondon, England
occupationTheatre director
years_active1966–2015
spouse

| | partner | Julia Lintott (1988–1996) | | children | 3 | ::

| name = Terry Hands | image = Terry Hands.png | imagesize = | caption = Hands in 1972 | birth_name = Terence David Hands | birth_date = | birth_place = Aldershot, Hampshire, England | death_date = | death_place = London, England | occupation = Theatre director | years_active = 1966–2015 | spouse =

| partner = Julia Lintott (1988–1996) | children = 3

Terence David Hands, (9 January 1941 – 4 February 2020) was an English theatre director. He founded the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for thirteen years during one of the company's most successful periods; he spent 25 years in all with the RSC. He also saved Clwyd Theatr Cymru from closure and turned it into the most successful theatre in Wales in his seventeen years as Artistic Director. He received several Olivier, Tony and Molière awards and nominations for directing and lighting.

Early years

Hands was born at Aldershot, Hampshire, England, on 9 January 1941. His mother was a German immigrant, though during World War II and for several years afterward, she said that she was from Switzerland. including a prominent production of T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral".

Career

Hands was recruited by Peter Hall to the Royal Shakespeare Company two years later in 1966 to run the company's touring group Theatregoround. As Director Emeritus and Artistic Director he directed more productions during his 25 years there than any other director in the company’s history. These included the entire History Cycle with Alan Howard, Much Ado About Nothing and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac with Derek Jacobi and Sinéad Cusack (both productions transferred to Broadway), Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine with Sir Antony Sher, Love's Labour's Lost with Ralph Fiennes, Anton Chekov's The Seagull with Sir Simon Russell Beale, A Winter’s Tale with Jeremy Irons, Othello with Sir Ben Kingsley and David Suchet and the award-winning musical Poppy.

He was the first foreign director invited to direct at the Comédie-Française; he was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and was appointed as a consultant director.

In 1997 Hands became Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd (afterwards renamed Clwyd Theatr Cymru), which presents much of its work on tour in Wales and the rest of the UK, saving the theatre from closure.

He was appointed CBE in the 2007 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to drama. In October 2001 he resigned from his position as an advisory director of the RSC.

In 2015 Hands left his post as Artistic Director of Clwyd Theatr Cymru after seventeen years in the post, having turned the theatre into the most successful in Wales and leaving a legacy of a Welsh company of associate artists.

His international directing credits include productions in Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, London, New York, Oslo, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna and Zurich. From 1975 to 1980 he was consultant-director of the Comédie-Française and was a Chevalier of Arts and Letters. His opera directing credits include "Otello" with Plácido Domingo (Paris Opera) and Parsifal (Royal Opera House).

Personal life and death

Hands was married to soprano Dame Josephine Barstow (1964–1967), A chain smoker with an unhealthy diet, he once remarked "I virtually never eat vegetables, and I never eat a salad, ever".

Hands died from a stroke at Charing Cross Hospital in London, aged 79, on 4 February 2020. At the time of his death, he lived in Bryneglwys, Wales.

Awards and nominations

;Awards

;Nominations

  • 1985: Tony Award for Best Director of a Play – Much Ado About Nothing
  • 1985: Tony Award for Best Lighting Design – Much Ado About Nothing
  • 1985: Tony Award for Best Lighting Design – Cyrano De Bergerac

Stage productions

;Theatregoround – Touring RSC

;RSC (Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Aldwych Theatre)

;RSC at the Barbican Theatres and Royal Shakespeare Theatre

;Chichester Festival

  • 1995: Hadrian VII, Chichester Festival Theatre
  • 1995: The Visit, Chichester Festival Theatre

;Clwyd Theatr Cymru

  • 1997: Equus
  • 1998: A Christmas Carol, Peter Barnes
  • 1998: The Journey of Mary Kelly, Siân Evans
  • 1998: Table Manners
  • 1998: Living Together
  • 1998: Round And Round The Garden
  • 1999: Twelfth Night
  • 1999: Macbeth
  • 2000: Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas
  • 2001: King Lear
  • 2001: Bedroom Farce
  • 2001: The Rabbit, Meredydd Barker
  • 2002: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard
  • 2002: Romeo and Juliet
  • 2002: The Four Seasons, Arnold Wesker
  • 2002: Betrayal
  • 2003: Blithe Spirit, Noël Coward
  • 2003: The Crucible, Arthur Miller
  • 2004: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
  • 2005: Brassed Off
  • 2005: Troilus and Cressida
  • 2005: Brassed Off (Revival)
  • 2005: Night Must Fall
  • 2006: A Chorus of Disapproval
  • 2006: Memory
  • 2007: Arcadia
  • 2007: Memory (Revival in New York)
  • 2007: The Cherry Orchard
  • 2008: Macbeth
  • 2008: Memory (Revival in London and Wales tour)
  • 2009: Noises Off
  • 2009: Mary Stuart (featuring his daughter, Marina Hands as Mary)
  • 2009: Pygmalion
  • 2010: Arden of Faversham
  • 2010: A Small Family Business
  • 2010: Blackthorn
  • 2011: The Taming of the Shrew
  • 2012: As You Like It
  • 2012: Boeing Boeing
  • 2013: The Winslow Boy
  • 2014: Under Milk Wood
  • 2015: Hamlet

References

References

  1. (4 February 2020). "Terry Hands, award-winning theatre director who proved to be the wrong man to lead the RSC – obituary".
  2. "Review of In Memory from the theatre dance and drama in Wales web site".
  3. (26 January 2015). "Mold Clwyd Theatr Cymru to stage Hamlet as artistic director's swan song".
  4. Wiegand, Chris. (4 February 2020). "Theatre director Terry Hands, who ran the Royal Shakespeare Company, dies aged 79". [[The Guardian]].
  5. Billington, Michael. (2024). "Hands, Terence David [Terry] (1941–2020), theatre director".
  6. Georgia Snow. (4 February 2020). "Former RSC artistic director Terry Hands dies".
  7. Billington, Michael. (4 February 2020). "Terry Hands left our theatre infinitely richer than he found it". [[The Guardian]].
  8. (15 February 2020). "Terry Hands obituary". [[The Times]].
  9. "Terry Hands".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

1941-births2020-deathsacademics-of-the-university-of-glamorganalumni-of-the-royal-academy-of-dramatic-artalumni-of-the-university-of-birminghambusinesspeople-from-aldershotcommanders-of-the-order-of-the-british-empiredrama-desk-award-winnersenglish-people-of-german-descentenglish-theatre-directorslaurence-olivier-award-winnersshakespearean-directors