Nicholas Hytner

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Nicholas Hytner (born May 7, 1956) is an award-winning English producer and director.

[edit] Background

Hytner was born in Manchester to a Jewish family, attended the Manchester Grammar School and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He worked as an Associate Director at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre between 1985 and 1989, and at the National Theatre in London between 1989 and 1997. His directional work includes The Country Wife, Edward II, Don Carlos, Ghetto, Miss Saigon, Orpheus Descending, a 2-part adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Alan Bennett's The History Boys, Carousel, Southwark Fair and The Alchemist.

He has also directed movies, such as The Crucible, The Madness of King George, The Object of My Affection and Center Stage.

His direction of the world-wide hit Miss Saigon and the launching of his period as director of the National Theatre with the controversial Jerry Springer: the Opera both benefitted from his pathbreaking direction of operas, including most notably Xerxes in 1985, which won the Laurence Olivier Opera Award that year, became a huge hit (uniquely for a Handel opera in modern times) and is still in the English National Opera repertory. He has subsequently directed opera for Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Paris Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, Geneva Opera and Bavarian State Opera.

[edit] Director at the National Theatre

He was appointed director of the National Theatre in London in 2003. He has made some drastic changes at the National, choosing much more political and controversial pieces than his predecessors, but he was famously quoted upon being appointed the job that he himself was "a member of all sorts of interesting minorities". He also introduced a very successful plan called the Travelex £10 Season, which, as the name suggests, offers up a number of tickets at a very reduced price.

Hytner's film version of the very successful stage play The History Boys appeared in 2006.