Richardson, Tony

Richardson, Tony [ Cecil Antonio Richardson] (1928–91), English director, who in 1955 joined the company at the Royal Court Theatre, where among other new plays he directed John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1956; NY, 1957) and The Entertainer (1957; NY, 1958). Other outstanding productions for the Royal Court were Ionesco's The Chairs and The Lesson (1958) in a double bill. He then went to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, where he directed Pericles (also 1958) and Othello (1959) with Paul Robeson in the title-role. He returned to the Royal Court to direct Coward's Look after Lulu (1959), Osborne's Luther (1961), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1962), and in 1962 he also directed David Turner's Semi-Detached in the West End, with Olivier. After directing Luther in New York in 1963 he remained on Broadway, being responsible for productions of Brecht's Arturo Ui (also 1963) and Tennessee Williams's The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1964). Back in London he directed, also in 1964, a new version of Chekhov's The Seagull with Vanessa Redgrave (to whom he was then married) as Nina. Later in the same year he was responsible for the first British production of Brecht's St Joan of the Stockyards. In 1969 he directed Hamlet, later seen in New York and on tour in the USA, and in 1972 he was responsible for productions of Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera, again with Vanessa Redgrave, and John Mortimer's I, Claudius, based on Robert Graves's novels. He also directed Vanessa in Antony and Cleopatra at Sam Wanamaker's Bankside Globe in 1973, and in Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea in New York in 1976. He subsequently lived in Los Angeles, where in 1979 he directed As You Like It. A well-known film director, he worked latterly for the cinema and television.