Happy Birthday to Olivier- and Tony-winning director Nicholas Hytner, born May 7, 1956, in Manchester, England. He studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, where he cowrote the 1977 Footlights Revue and directed the Brecht-Weill opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. After graduating, Hytner began directing at Kent Opera. In 1983, he joined English National Opera, who produced his 1988 English translation of Handel’s Xerxes. Below is the overture and opening aria, “Ombra mai fu,” sung by Ann Murray.
Impressed by Hytner’s opera work, producer Cameron Mackintosh hired him to direct the West End premiere of Miss Saigon (1989), based on Verdi’s opera Madame Butterfly, which earned Hytner the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Director. The Broadway debut of the musical in 1991 brought Hytner his first Tony nomination. Below are Simon Bowman and Lea Salonga of the original London cast singing “The Last Night of the World.”
In 1990, Hytner became an associate director of London’s National Theatre. His 1992 direction of Carousel brought him his second Olivier Award, and its 1994 Broadway transfer brought him his first Tony and Drama Desk awards. In 1996, he earned a BAFTA Award and a Cannes Palme d’Or nomination for the film The Madness of King George, which he had originally directed on stage at the National in 1991. Below is the opening sequence of the London production of Carousel.
Hytner began the next decade with the musical film Center Stage (2000). A year later, he was appointed artistic director of the National Theatre. He received a Drama Desk nomination for the Broadway musical Sweet Smell of Success (2002) and a Tony nod for Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers (2004), then he won an Olivier, a Tony, and a Drama Desk for Alan Bennett’s The History Boys (2006). Below is John Lithgow and the Broadway cast of Sweet Smell of Success performing “Dirt” at the 56th annual Tony Awards.
In the past decade, the National Theatre’s Broadway transfers have included: War Horse (2011), which brought Hytner a Tony; One Man, Two Guvnors (2012), which brought him a Tony nod for his direction; and a revival of the musical Fela! (2012). Hytner left the National in 2015, cofounding the Bridge Theatre with Nick Starr in 2017. Below is a look at the creation of that new company.