Balancing Acts: Behind the Scenes at London's National Theatre

by Nicholas Hytner

Overview

Here is Nicholas Hytner’s fascinating, candid memoir of his tenure at the helm of Britain’s greatest theater. As artistic director of London’s National Theatre from 2003 to 2015, Hytner was in charge of three stages, directing and producing such plays and musicals as The Madness of George III, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Richard Bean’s One Man, Two Guvnors, and War Horse, among many others.
       Combining touches of gossip with serious insight into the processes that bring a production to life, Hytner discusses his major failures and spectacular successes. He looks at Shakespeare from every angle and writes about reinventing the classics; changing the public’s perception of what theater is in our times; balancing the idea of art with what will sell; encouraging new talent; and collaborating with actors and playwrights, including Richard Griffiths, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Mike Leigh, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Gambon, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Stoppard, Alan Bennett, and Harold Pinter. Intimate and insightful, Balancing Acts is a passionate exploration of the art and alchemy of making theater.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451493408
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Nicholas Hytner is a theater director and producer. He was artistic director of London’s National Theatre from 2003 to 2015 and co-founded the London Theatre Company, whose first theater, The Bridge, opened in October 2017.

Read an Excerpt

5
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Balancing Acts"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Nicholas Hytner.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Part 1 Set-Up

1 National Identity 21

2001

2 Imaginary Forces 38

2002

3 A Really Good Time 55

2003

Part 2 New Things

4 Ourselves and Each Other 77

New Plays

5 A Way of Looking at Things 116

Alan Bennett

6 Knowing Nothing 139

Movies

Part 3 Old Things

7 A Reason to Do It 155

Shakespeare

8 The Original Production 178

Staging the Classics

9 The Age and Body of the Time 199

More Shakespeare

Part 4 Show Business

10 On the Bandwagon 227

Musicals

11 What They Best Like 244

Entertainment

11 One Night Only 266

Tacking Them In

Prologue 280

Cast and Creatives 283

Index 297

Editorial Reviews

09/18/2017
One of the most highly regarded British directors of stage, opera, and screen (Henry V, Miss Saigon, The History Boys), Hytner chronicles his 12-year tenure as artistic director at the National Theatre in this detailed and stimulating look at the state of the art. He is candid, at times self-critical, as he shares fun and intimate stories of working with such luminaries as Arthur Miller, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Tom Stoppard, and director John Gielgud (“I thought as I sat at John Gielgud’s lunch table, I’m two degrees of separation from Oscar Wilde, I’m eating lunch with someone who knew his lover, his director, his actors”). He produced 20 shows a year for a multistage theater and here reflects on the learning curve he experienced with each project, walking a “tightrope” between classical and contemporary performances. He discusses his experience making Shakespeare current, adapting musicals for mixed audiences, commissioning plays by new playwrights, and dramatizing edgy literature for young theatergoers, as with his well-received stage adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. His advocacy for creative and audience diversity, gender- and color-blind casting, televised plays, low ticket prices, and state-funded arts education is passionate and articulate. He wasn’t always able to achieve his goals, and those failures are given just consideration and make for a captivating narrative. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 09/15/2017
London's Royal National Theatre, comprised of the venue triumvirate of the Olivier, Lyttelton, and Dorfman (formerly Cottesloe) Theatres, boasts a lineage of theatrical royalty. Sir Lawrence Olivier and Sir Peter Hall served as artistic directors of the National; Hytner's 12-year tenure saw unprecedented growth in audience development and artistic expression, success that has distinguished the National since 1963. This exquisitely written memoir of Hytner's time running the National (2003–15), when he produced more than 100 new plays, is a revelatory exegesis of finding balance at all levels of artistic, technical, philosophical, and commercial production. The pages sparkle with luminaries with whom the author has worked, including Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Kenneth Branagh, Alan Bennet, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Stoppard, and Harold Pinter. The elements Hytner so adroitly strived for in his stewardship of the National is manifested throughout this memoir—the importance of new play development and classical, especially Shakespearean, theater; weighing working in film vs. theater; the relationship of producer with director, producer with playwright, producer as director with actor; and the precarious calibration of artistic and commercial achievement. VERDICT An unqualified rave for this title. The theater crowd is the obvious audience for this book, but the intelligence, wit, and humor throughout expands the scope of readership to anyone interested in the arts. Well done, Sir Nicholas. [See Prepub Alert, 5/15/17.]—Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX

Library Journal

Funny and immediate and ring[s] true. . . . Hytner is indisputably one of the best theater directors in the world.” —The New York Times Book Review 

“A masterclass in creative leadership. . . . As engrossing as it is entertaining.” —The Economist

“Absorbing. . . . Astute. . . . Should be read not simply by anyone who has an interest in British theatre, but anyone interested in that oldest of questions: how you make art that sells.” —The Guardian

“Engaging and illuminating.” —The New York Review of Books 

“Hugely entertaining. . . . Hytner has a writer’s instinct for detail, drawing you into the room with luminaries such as Arthur Miller, John Gielgud, Alan Bennett. . . . He balances wit with intellectual gravitas, gossip with self-deprecation, and mischief with serious insight.” —Financial Times

“Priceless.” —The New York Post

“Vivid, engaging, alive with anecdotes and continually invigorated by ideas.” —The Sunday Times (London)

“Balancing Acts is both history and illumination. . . .  Wonderfully lucid. . . .  Witty and entertaining. . . . Reveals both the ecstasy and the agony of staging large and ambitious shows.” —The Evening Standard

“A wonderful book: stimulating, intelligent, gossipy, heartfelt, affectionate, honest and, perhaps above all, fun.” —The Mail on Sunday

“Revelatory. . . . Full of anecdotes about the terrifying art of bringing a play alive, and full of insight about the sheer daredevil tightrope act that running the National Theatre involves. . . .  A vital reminder both of what theatre can do—and what is at stake if we take it for granted.” —What’s On Stage

““Hytner has produced a rare thing: an absorbing memoir by a director-turned-arts-administrator. . . . The insouciance of Balancing Acts is magic dust, sprinkled by a master Oberon.” —Standpoint

“A tremendous book about life in the theatre—and theatre, and life. Honest, shrewd and heartfelt. A classic of its kind.” —William Boyd, author of Sweet Caress

“An unqualified rave for this title. . . . The pages sparkles with luminaries with whom the author has worked. . . . Exquisitely written. . . . The theater crowd is the obvious audience for this book, but the intelligence, wit, and humor throughout expands the scope of readership to anyone interested in the arts.” —Library Journal (starred review) 

“A captivating narrative. . . .  A detailed and stimulating look at the state of the art.” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher