Miller, Jonathan Wolfe

Miller, Jonathan Wolfe (1934– ), English director, who qualified as a doctor at Cambridge, where he also acted in several Footlights revues. After the unexpected success at the Edinburgh Festival of the 1960 revue Beyond the Fringe, of which he was co-author, he appeared in it in London and New York. The first play he directed was John Osborne's one-act Under Plain Cover (1962) at the Royal Court Theatre. Among his major productions were King Lear in 1969 at Nottingham, with Michael Hordern, and The Merchant of Venice (1970), with Olivier as Shylock, at the National Theatre, where he later directed Büchner's Danton's Death in 1971 and Sheridan's The School for Scandal in 1972. In 1972 he also directed The Taming of the Shrew for Chichester, following it with Chekhov's The Seagull in 1973. Appointed associate director of the National Theatre, 1973–5, he directed Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro, Measure for Measure, and Peter Nichols's The Freeway (all 1974). He directed several productions at Greenwich, including Hamlet and Ibsen's Ghosts in 1974, and in 1976 was responsible for a memorable West End production of Chekhov's Three Sisters. He ‘retired’ from the theatre in 1979, but returned to direct Jack Lemmon in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night (NY and London, 1986). From 1988 to 1990 he was Artistic Director of the Old Vic, where his productions included George Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois in 1988 and Corneille's The Liar in 1989. He is also a well-known director of opera.