NPR

Director Peter Hall, A Champion Of British Theater, Dies At 86

Hall ran two of the most important theater companies in England — the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. He directed Waiting for Godot and Amadeus, among dozens of plays, old and new.
Peter Hall (left) talks with actor, producer and director Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre in London in March 1973.

Legendary theater director Sir Peter Hall might have ended up the grand old man of British theater, but he came from modest beginnings — Hall was born in 1930 in Suffolk, England to a father who was a railway clerk, and his family lived in a house without electricity.

Hall went on to run two of the most important theater companies in England — the Royal Shakespeare and , among dozens of plays, old and new.

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