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What It Takes®

Trevor Nunn: A Love Letter to Theater

What It Takes®

Academy of Achievement

Film, Politics, Arts, Self-help, Sports, Society & Culture, Success, Literature, Humanitarian, Military, Social Justice, Technology, Podcast, Achievement, Music, Science

4.6943 Ratings

🗓️ 28 December 2020

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

He's one of the greatest all-time directors of Shakespeare, and has directed every one of the Bard's plays. But he's also directed 34 shows on Broadway, including "Cats" and "Les Miserables", and more yet on London's West End. Trevor Nunn has been the Artistic Director of both the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the National Theatre. And at 80, this British cultural icon of the theater is still going strong. He talks here about his mysterious infatuation with theater at a very early age, in a working class family where there were no books. He pays tribute to a teacher who changed his life. And he waxes oh-so-passionately about Shakespeare and the power of theater. Oh, and he also talks about how it is he came to write the lyrics of "Memory", one of the most famous songs ever from a musical! (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

Transcript

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0:00.0

Happy Holidays everyone, it's Alice.

0:04.8

Trevor Nunn's simple yet profound wish is that theater should remain.

0:10.3

I want it to be in every community. I want it to be in every community I want it to speak directly to people's

0:17.8

experience theatre has always been able to challenge, to protest, to say think again, to say question.

0:28.7

What do we do?

0:29.7

I mean, Ibsen was able to do it.

0:32.2

Treckoff was able to do it, Jekov was able to do it,

0:34.0

Shakespeare was able to do it,

0:36.0

Arthur Miller was sensationally able to do it.

0:39.0

Arthur Miller in the crucible

0:41.0

writes a play that makes us say,

0:44.0

oh, now I understand why we shouldn't be victimizing

0:48.0

and what...

0:49.0

Yes, I mean, the theater can do that and can change society or can liberate society and it must go on being able to do that.

1:00.0

This genius of the theater world has directed every Shakespeare play, all 37 of them.

1:07.3

He was the artistic director of England's Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theater. He was also the original director

1:16.0

of Cats and of Le Miserob, two record-shattering productions. His credits Stateside include 34 shows on Broadway, four of which

1:27.2

earned him Tony Awards. Then there are the movies and the television shows. So who knows how Trevor Nunn, 80 years old as I record these

1:36.4

words, found time to brush his teeth, or sit down with the Academy of Achievement to talk about his astonishing career.

1:45.8

When he said the words who just heard, he had no idea that six months later, the theater world

1:51.0

would face an unprecedented challenge from COVID.

1:54.7

As we close out a year in which theaters went dark and actors and musicians and other

...

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