Hugh Wooldridge
Encyclopedia
Hugh Wooldridge was born in London, England, UK
, the son of British composer John Wooldridge
and actress Margaretta Scott
. He is the brother of actress Susan Wooldridge
. For over thirty years, Hugh Wooldridge has directed, produced, devised and lit productions worldwide – from Copenhagen to Cape Town.
Having trained at LAMDA, he started his career by assisting directors such as Alan Ayckbourn
, Eric Thompson
, Frank Hauser
and Michael Blakemore
; however, he has been directing plays in his own right since the age of seventeen.
In the first ten years of his career he directed more than sixty productions in London and throughout the UK – from Alan Ayckbourn to Rene de Obaldia
, and Pam Gems
to Athol Fugard
. He was a resident director at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester; the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead, and the Old Vic Theatre, London.
During the next ten years, he ran his own multi-media company, The Jolly Good Production Company, which produced plays and TV programmes, managed artistes and published books. During this time he was also responsible for music programmes and programming in the ITV network, specifically in the south and south east of England. He also directed international tours of Jesus Christ Superstar
and The Rocky Horror Show
as well as national tours of plays by Noël Coward
, Daphne du Maurier
and Dylan Thomas
.
More recently he has specialised in devising, directing and producing large-scale events around the world including the Richard Rodgers
Award celebrating Andrew Lloyd Webber
in Pittsburgh, A Gala Concert for Hal Prince in Munich
, Sondheim Tonight in New York
and London and Who Could Ask For Anything More? – the centenary celebration of Ira Gershwin
at the Royal Albert Hall, London. With Trevor Nunn
he co-directed the Golden Wedding Anniversary celebrations for Her Majesty the Queen. He has also directed many showcases, workshops and first productions of new writing.
In May 2008 he adapted and directed Chess in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall
with Josh Groban
, Idina Menzel
, Adam Pascal
, Marti Pellow
, Kerry Ellis
and Clarke Peters
, introduced by Tim Rice
. This has now been released on DVD and CD, and was screened in UK cinemas in September 2009.
In 2009 Wooldridge directed the vocal group Cantabile
Christmas shows at the Delfont Room (Prince Edward Theatre) and St. John's, Smith Square.
Since 1999, he has annually produced, devised and directed The Night of 1000 Voices at the Royal Albert Hall, London. In 2010, The Night of 1000 Voices celebrated its 10th birthday and the 50th Anniversary of Leukaemia Research with Kerry Ellis, Brian May and Adam Pascal.
Currently he has a production of Charles Dickens
’s The Haunting on a Bill Kenwright
UK Tour with Paul Nicholas
, Sean Maguire
and Hannah Steele and he is preparing ANTHEMS: The Concert for May 1, 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall also with Kerry Ellis, Brian May
and Adam Pascal for the benefit of Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. He is now in residence at the University of Oklahoma, directing a new version of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber which opens April 14, 2011.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the son of British composer John Wooldridge
John Wooldridge
Wing Commander John De Lacy Wooldridge, DSO, DFC and Bar, DFM, was a British film composer.- Early life :Wooldridge was born in Yokohama, Japan and was educated at St Paul's School, London...
and actress Margaretta Scott
Margaretta Scott
Margaretta Scott was an English stage, screen and television actress whose career spanned over seventy years. She is best remembered for playing the eccentric widow Mrs...
. He is the brother of actress Susan Wooldridge
Susan Wooldridge
Susan Wooldridge , is the daughter of British actress Margaretta Scott and composer John Wooldridge. She is also the sister of Hugh Wooldridge.She was born in London, England, and educated at convent schools....
. For over thirty years, Hugh Wooldridge has directed, produced, devised and lit productions worldwide – from Copenhagen to Cape Town.
Having trained at LAMDA, he started his career by assisting directors such as Alan Ayckbourn
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...
, Eric Thompson
Eric Thompson
Eric Norman Thompson was an English actor, producer and television presenter.Thompson was born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of George Henry and Anne Thompson, and grew up Rudgwick, Sussex, attending Collyer's School, Horsham...
, Frank Hauser
Frank Hauser
Frank Hauser is an American football coach and former player. He played at Wesleyan University and served as the school's head football coach for 18 years from 1992 to 2009...
and Michael Blakemore
Michael Blakemore
Michael Howell Blakemore OBE is an Australian actor, writer and theatre director. In 2000 he became the only individual to win Tony Awards for best Director of a Play and Musical in the same year for Copenhagen and Kiss Me, Kate....
; however, he has been directing plays in his own right since the age of seventeen.
In the first ten years of his career he directed more than sixty productions in London and throughout the UK – from Alan Ayckbourn to Rene de Obaldia
René de Obaldia
René de Obaldia is a French playwright and poet. He was elected to the Académie française June 24, 1999.He grew up in Paris, studying at the Lycée Condorcet before being mobilised for the army in 1940. Taken prisoner, he was sent to Stalag VIII C...
, and Pam Gems
Pam Gems
Pam Gems was a British playwright. The author of numerous original plays, as well as of adaptations of works by major European playwrights of the past, Gems is best known for the 1978 musical play Piaf.-Personal life:...
to Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director who writes in English, best known for his political plays opposing the South African system of apartheid and for the 2005 Academy-Award winning film of his novel Tsotsi, directed by Gavin Hood...
. He was a resident director at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester; the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead, and the Old Vic Theatre, London.
During the next ten years, he ran his own multi-media company, The Jolly Good Production Company, which produced plays and TV programmes, managed artistes and published books. During this time he was also responsible for music programmes and programming in the ITV network, specifically in the south and south east of England. He also directed international tours of Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
and The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British horror comedy stage musical, which opened in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, produced and directed by Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals"...
as well as national tours of plays by Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Daphne du Maurier
Daphne du Maurier
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...
and Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
.
More recently he has specialised in devising, directing and producing large-scale events around the world including the Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
Award celebrating Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
in Pittsburgh, A Gala Concert for Hal Prince in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Sondheim Tonight in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and London and Who Could Ask For Anything More? – the centenary celebration of Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
at the Royal Albert Hall, London. With Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
he co-directed the Golden Wedding Anniversary celebrations for Her Majesty the Queen. He has also directed many showcases, workshops and first productions of new writing.
In May 2008 he adapted and directed Chess in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
with Josh Groban
Josh Groban
Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. His four solo albums have been certified at least multi-platinum, and in 2007, he was charted as the number-one best selling artist in the United States with over 21 million records in that country...
, Idina Menzel
Idina Menzel
Idina Kim Menzel is an American actress, singer and songwriter. She is widely known for originating the roles of Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked.-Early life:...
, Adam Pascal
Adam Pascal
Adam Pascal is an American actor and singer known for his performance as Roger Davis in the original cast of Jonathan Larson's musical Rent on Broadway 1996, the 2005 movie version of the musical, and the Broadway Tour of Rent in 2009...
, Marti Pellow
Marti Pellow
Marti Pellow has been the lead singer of the Scottish pop group Wet Wet Wet since their formation in 1982. He has also recorded solo material.-Early life:...
, Kerry Ellis
Kerry Ellis
Kerry Jane Ellis is an English stage actress and singer who is best known for her work in musical theatre and subsequent crossover into music...
and Clarke Peters
Clarke Peters
Clarke Peters is an American actor, singer, writer and director best known for his role as Detective Lester Freamon on the HBO drama The Wire.-Early life:...
, introduced by Tim Rice
Tim Rice
Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...
. This has now been released on DVD and CD, and was screened in UK cinemas in September 2009.
In 2009 Wooldridge directed the vocal group Cantabile
Cantabile
Cantabile is a musical term meaning literally "singable" or "songlike" . It has several meanings in different contexts. In instrumental music, it indicates a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th century composers, the term is often used synonymously with...
Christmas shows at the Delfont Room (Prince Edward Theatre) and St. John's, Smith Square.
Since 1999, he has annually produced, devised and directed The Night of 1000 Voices at the Royal Albert Hall, London. In 2010, The Night of 1000 Voices celebrated its 10th birthday and the 50th Anniversary of Leukaemia Research with Kerry Ellis, Brian May and Adam Pascal.
Currently he has a production of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
’s The Haunting on a Bill Kenwright
Bill Kenwright
Bill Kenwright CBE is a leading West End theatre producer and film producer.He is also the Chairman of Everton Football Club, an English professional football club from the city of Liverpool....
UK Tour with Paul Nicholas
Paul Nicholas
Paul Nicholas is an English actor and singer who has had considerable success on stage, screen and in the pop charts.-Biography:Nicholas was born as Paul Oscar Beuselinck in Peterborough, England...
, Sean Maguire
Sean Maguire
Sean Maguire is an English actor and singer, who rose to fame in 1988 when at the age of eleven he took on the role of "Tegs" Ratcliffe on the BBC children's drama Grange Hill, in which he remained until 1992...
and Hannah Steele and he is preparing ANTHEMS: The Concert for May 1, 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall also with Kerry Ellis, Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
and Adam Pascal for the benefit of Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. He is now in residence at the University of Oklahoma, directing a new version of The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber which opens April 14, 2011.