Nunn, Trevor Robert

Nunn, Trevor Robert (1940– ), English director, who acted in and directed several plays for the Marlowe Society while at Cambridge. In 1962 he went to the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry as a trainee director, remaining there until in 1965 he joined the RSC, where his first production was The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, a children's play by Robert Bolt. A year later he directed the first revival for 300 years of Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, and in 1967 he was responsible for excellent revivals of Vanbrugh's The Relapse and The Taming of the Shrew. In 1968 he was appointed the company's Artistic Director, directing in the same year productions of Much Ado about Nothing and King Lear. Among his other notable productions were The Romans (1972), which included Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Titus Andronicus; his own adaptation of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (1975); a musical version of The Comedy of Errors, for which he wrote the lyrics, and a studio Macbeth, with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench (both 1976). Between 1978 and 1987 he was Chief Executive and Joint Artistic Director with Terry Hands, his productions including a revival of Kaufman and Hart's Once in a Lifetime in 1979; The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, based on Dickens's novel, in 1980 (NY, 1981); and a highly praised Edwardian All's Well that Ends Well (also 1981). In the same year he directed Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, demonstrating his ability to handle large-scale musicals in his first freelance production since becoming the RSC's Artistic Director. He later directed the musicals Starlight Express (1984; NY, 1987), Aspects of Love (1989; NY, 1990), both by Lloyd Webber, Chess (1986; NY, 1987), and The Baker's Wife (1989). He was also joint adaptor and director of the RSC's own highly successful musical Les Misérables (1985; NY, 1987), and in 1989 the RSC staged his small-scale production of Othello. His first wife was Janet Suzman.