Terry Hands

Director, Clwyd Theatr Cymru

Director Emeritus RSC, Hon. D. Litt. (Birmingham), Hon. Doct. (Middlesex), Hon. Fellow Shakespeare Institute, Hon. Director Liverpool Everyman. Hon. Fellow. Welsh College of Music and Drama. Hon. Fellow North East Wales Institute.

Terry Hands studied English Language and Literature at Birmingham University (BA Hons) and trained at RADA (Hons Diploma).  In 1964 he founded The Liverpool Everyman Theatre of which he is now Honorary Director.

In 1966 Terry became Artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Theatregoround, touring productions to the community.

He became Associate Director of the RSC in 1967.

His work included directing all four productions in the centenary season at Stratford 1975, Henry V, Henry IV parts 1 & 2.  Henry V also played to New York, and major European and British cities.  In 1977 he directed the three parts of Henry VI - the first time they had been produced in their entirety since Shakespeare’s day - they won two awards:  Joint Winner of the Plays and Players Award for Best Production and the SWET Award for Director of the Year in 1978.

In 1972 Terry directed Richard III at the Comedie Francaise which won the Meilleur Spectacle de L’Annee and later appeared at the World Theatre Season, London in 1973.  In 1975 he was appointed Consultant Director of the Comedie Francaise, and also Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French Government.  He won the Meilleur Spectacle de L’Annee once again in 1976 for Twelfth Night.

In 1978 Terry was appointed Joint Artistic director of the RSC.

During this period he directed many plays including:  Richard II and III in 1980 starring Alan Howard, these completed the history cycle he had begun in 1975;  Poppy in 1982 which won the SWET Award for Musical of the Year;  and Cyrano De Bergerac in 1983 with Derek Jacobi, which collected nine awards including the SWET Award for Best Director and Best Director of a Classical Revival.  Cyrano toured to Los Angeles, Broadway and Washington, winning eleven awards including a ‘Tony’ Best Actor Award for Derek Jacobi, and a New York Drama League Award for Best Production for Terry Hands, together with 3 Tony Nominations.  In 1985 Terry directed Red Noses, which won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, and Othello with Ben Kingsley and David Suchet.

In 1986 Terry became Chief Executive of the RSC.

His plays included The Winter’s Tale with Jeremy Irons, Coriolanus with Charles Dance and Love’s Labour’s Lost with Ralph Fiennes.  In 1991 Terry was presented with the Pragnell Shakespeare Award and he left the RSC after 25 years.

Terry then went on to direct in Berlin, Paris, Zurich, Tokyo and Oslo.  Productions included Hadrian The Seventh with Derek Jacobi, The Visit with Lauren Bacall and Tamburlaine The Great with Anthony Sher, which won the Evening Standard and The London Drama Critics Award for Best Director, and his production of Hamlet was nominated for a Moliere in Paris in 1994. In Oslo he directed The Merry Wives Of Windsor 1995, Kongsemnerne 1996, The Seagull 1998.

Terry has directed 3 operas - Otello Paris Opera 1976 with Placido Domingo and Margaret Price, Parsifal R.O.H. 1979 with Kurt Moll and Yvonne Minton, Simon Boccanegra, Bremen 1992 with Ron Peo.

In 1996 he joined Theatr Clwyd as Artistic Consultant, and prevented its closure after Local Government Re-organisation.  In 1997 he became Director and Chief Executive.

Renamed Clwyd Theatr Cymru the theatre won the nation-wide British TMA Awards Theatre of the Year in 1998.  In 1999 Clwyd Theatr Cymru was declared a WNPAC (Welsh National Performing Arts Company), alongside the Welsh National Opera and the National Orchestra of Wales.

For Clwyd Theatr Cymru his productions have included: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, Equus by Peter Shaffer, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens adapted by Peter Barnes, The Journey of Mary Kelly by Siân Evans, The Norman Conquests by Alan Ayckbourn, Twelfth Night and Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, Private Lives by Noël Coward, King Lear by William Shakespeare, Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn, The Rabbit  by Meredydd Barker, Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard, Betrayal by Harold Pinter, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, The Four Seasons by Arnold Wesker, Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Pleasure and Repentance, his own compilation of poetry and music, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Dale Wasserman, Brassed Off written by Mark Herman and adapted by Paul Allen,
Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare, Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams,
A Chorus of Disapproval by Alan Ayckbourn, Memory by Jonathan Lichtenstein,
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard and a new version of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard by Mike Poulton.