Vivian Matalon
Encyclopedia
Vivian Matalon is a British
theatre director.
Born in Manchester
, England
, Matalon began his career as an actor in a series of forgettable British films, but his greatest success has been as a director of West End
, Broadway
, and regional theater productions.
Matalon's West End credits include Bus Stop
with Lee Remick
and Keir Dullea
, I Never Sang for My Father
with Raymond Massey
, and The Glass Menagerie
with Anna Massey
. He was artistic director for three years at the Hampstead Theatre
, where his productions included Clifford Odets
' Awake and Sing and the Europe
an premiere of Small Craft Warnings
by Tennessee Williams
.
Matalon presently is serving on the Artisic Advisory Board of New York City
's New Worlds Theatre Project, which makes late 19th and early 20th century Yiddish plays accessible to contemporary audiences in modern English translations.
Nominations
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...
theatre director.
Born in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, Matalon began his career as an actor in a series of forgettable British films, but his greatest success has been as a director of West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
, Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, and regional theater productions.
Matalon's West End credits include Bus Stop
Bus Stop (play)
Bus Stop is a 1955 play by William Inge. The 1956 film is only loosely based upon it.-Characters:Bus Stop is a drama, with romantic and some comedic elements. It is set in a diner in rural Kansas, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Missouri during a snowstorm from which bus passengers must take...
with Lee Remick
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
and Keir Dullea
Keir Dullea
Keir Dullea is an American actor best known for the character of astronaut David Bowman, whom he portrayed in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in 1984's 2010: The Year We Make Contact...
, I Never Sang for My Father
I Never Sang for My Father
I Never Sang for My Father is a 1970 American film, based on a play by the same name, which tells the story of a college professor who wants to get out from under the thumb of his aging father yet still has regrets about his plan to leave him behind when he marries a younger woman and moves to...
with Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
, and The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
with Anna Massey
Anna Massey
Anna Raymond Massey, CBE was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner’s novel Hotel du Lac.-Early life:...
. He was artistic director for three years at the Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
, where his productions included Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
' Awake and Sing and the Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an premiere of Small Craft Warnings
Small Craft Warnings
Small Craft Warnings is a play by Tennessee Williams, an expansion of an earlier one-act play, Confessional, that was included in the Williams Dragon Country compilation of 1970...
by Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
.
Matalon presently is serving on the Artisic Advisory Board of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's New Worlds Theatre Project, which makes late 19th and early 20th century Yiddish plays accessible to contemporary audiences in modern English translations.
Stage productions
- SouvenirSouvenir (play)Souvenir is a two-character play, with incidental music, by Stephen Temperley.Set in a Greenwich Village supper club in 1964, it flashes back to the musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy socialite with a famously uncertain sense of pitch and key. In 1932, she met mediocre pianist...
(2005) - The Tap Dance KidThe Tap Dance KidThe Tap Dance Kid is a musical based on the novel Nobody's Family is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh. It was written by Charles Blackwell with music by Henry Krieger and lyrics by Robert Lorick.-Productions:...
(1983) - The Corn Is GreenThe Corn is GreenThe Corn Is Green is a semi-autobiographical play by Emlyn Williams.At its core is L. C. Moffat, a strong-willed English school teacher working in a small poverty-stricken coal mining town in the late 19th century...
(1983 revival) - The American ClockThe American ClockThe American Clock is a play by Arthur Miller. The play is about 1930s America during The Great Depression. It is based in part on Studs Terkel's Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. The play premiered on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre on November 11, 1980; closing on November 30,...
(1980) - BrigadoonBrigadoonBrigadoon is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Songs from the musical, such as "Almost Like Being in Love" have become standards....
(1980 revival) - Morning's at SevenMorning's at SevenMorning's at Seven is a play by Paul Osborn.Its plot focuses on four aging sisters living in a small Midwestern town in 1938, and it deals with ramifications within the family when two of them begin to question their lives and decide to make some changes before it’s too late.The original Broadway...
(1980 revival) - P. S. Your Cat Is Dead! (1975)
- Noël Coward in Two Keys (1974)
- After the RainAfter the Rainis a 1999 Japanese film. The story is based on the last script written by the late, legendary Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa and is directed by his former assistant director of 28 years, Takashi Koizumi. It was awarded a Japanese Academy Award in 1999...
(1967)
Awards and nominations
Awards- 1980: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play – Morning's at Seven
- 1980: Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Play – Morning's at Seven
Nominations
- 1984: Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical – The Tap Dance Kid