The National Theatre Story

2014 | History & Politics

"The National Theatre Story is filled with artistic, financial and political battles, onstage triumphs - and the occasional disaster. This definitive, authorized account takes readers from the National Theatre's 19th-century origins, through false dawns in the early 1900s and on to its hard-fought inauguration in 1963 at the Old Vic. There, Laurence Olivier was for ten years the inspirational leader of the NT Company, before it moved into its concrete, South Bank home, whose three theatres have since 1976 hosted more than 700 productions, premiering some of the 20th and 21st centuries' most popular and controversial plays, including Amadeus, The Romans in Britain, Closer, The History Boys and War Horse. Certain to be essential reading for theatre lovers and students, The National Theatre Story is packed with photographs and draws on Daniel Rosenthal's unprecedented access to the National Theatre's archives, unpublished correspondence and more than 100 new interviews with directors, playwrights and actors, including Olivier's four successors as NT Director (Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn and Nicholas Hytner), as well as the likes of Edward Albee, Alan Bennett, Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, David Hare, Ian McKellen, Maggie Smith, Stephen Sondheim and Tom Stoppard. "

Daniel Rosenthal (Author)