David Jones (director)


David Hugh Jones was an English stage, television and film director.

Life and career

Jones was born in Poole, Dorset, the son of John David Jones and his wife Gwendolen Agnes Langworthy, and was educated at Taunton School and Christ's College, Cambridge. Originally a television director, he first worked for BBC producer Huw Wheldon working on the Monitor arts television series from 1958 to 1964. His first London stage production was a triple-bill of T.S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes, W.B. Yeats's Purgatory and Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape at the Mermaid Theatre in 1961.
He directed his first production for the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Arts Theatre in 1962, Boris Vian's The Empire Builder, and two years later accepted the administrative post Artistic Controller at the Royal Shakespeare Company, helping to plan programmes of new plays and European classics at the Aldwych Theatre in London. He also took over responsibility for running the Aldwych from 1969 to 1972, and again in 1975–77. During this period he championed the plays of David Mercer and Maxim Gorky.
For BBC television he directed Ice Age, The Beaux Stratagem and Langrishe, Go Down. He also produced Play of the Month.
He left the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1979, taking up an appointment as an artistic director at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and to found a resident theatre company modelled on the RSC.
After teaching at the Yale School of Drama in 1981, he returned to England, where for the BBC Television Shakespeare series he directed The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and made his debut as a feature film director with Betrayal, based on Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of his 1978 play Betrayal.
From 1973 to 1978, Jones was Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, at the Aldwych Theatre, where he directed plays by William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Anton Chekhov, Seán O'Casey, Maxim Gorky, Harley Granville-Barker, Graham Greene, and others, and became an honorary associate director of the RSC in 1991. From 1979 to 1981, he was Artistic Director of the BAM Theater Company.
He also directed three productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, in Williamstown, Massachusetts: On the Razzle, by Tom Stoppard ; Sweet Bird of Youth, by Tennessee Williams, and The Autumn Garden, by Lillian Hellman.

Private life

Jones married the British actress Sheila Allen in 1964 with whom he had two sons, Jesse and Joseph. After his divorce from Allen, Jones's partner of the last 20 years of his life was photographer Joyce Tenneson; the couple lived in New York at the time of his death.

Theatre

  • The Empire Builders RSC Arts Theatre, 1962
  • The Governor's Lady Aldwych, 1965
  • Saint's Day, Stratford East, 1965
  • The Investigation co-directed with Peter Brook, Aldwych, 1965
  • Belcher's Luck Aldwych, 1966;
  • As You Like It, Stratford, 1967; Aldwych, 1967; Los Angeles, 1968; Stratford, 1968
  • Diary of a Scoundrel, Liverpool, 1968
  • The Tempest, Chichester, 1968
  • The Silver Tassie Aldwych, 1969
  • After Haggerty Aldwych and Criterion Theatre, 1970
  • The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising Aldwych, 1970
  • Enemies Aldwych, 1971
  • The Lower Depths Aldwych, 1972
  • The Island of the Mighty Aldwych, 1972
  • Love's Labour's Lost Stratford, 1973; New York and Aldwych 1975
  • Duck Song Aldwych, 1974
  • Summerfolk Aldwych, 1974; New York, 1975
  • The Marrying of Anne Leete Aldwych, 1975
  • The Return of A. J. Raffles Aldwych, 1975; Stratford 1976
  • Twelfth Night, Stratford, Ontario, 1975
  • The Zykovs Aldwych, 1976
  • Ivanov Aldwych, 1976
  • All's Well That Ends Well, Stratford, Ontario, 1977
  • Cymbeline Stratford 1979
  • Baal The Other Place, Stratford 1979; Donmar Warehouse, 1980
  • The Winter's Tale, BAM Theatre Company, 1980
  • Jungle of Cities BAM Theatre Company, 1981.
  • The Custom of the Country RSC Barbican The Pit, 1983
  • Old Times, starring Liv Ullmann, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and Theatre Royal Haymarket, 1985
  • Principia Scriptoriae The Pit, 1986
  • Barbarians Aldwych, 1990
  • Misha's Party The Pit, 1993
  • No Man's Land New York, 1994
  • The Hothouse Minerva Theatre, Chichester and Comedy Theatre, 1995
  • Taking Sides New York, 1996.
  • The Caretaker New York, 2003.
  • Triptych Irish Repertory Theatre, New York, 2004.
  • On the Razzle, Williamstown Theatre Festival, 2005.
  • Sweet Bird of Youth, Williamstown Theatre Festival, 2006.
  • The Last Confession Minerva Theatre, Chichester, May 2007, Theatre Royal Haymarket, July 2007.
  • The Autumn Garden, Williamstown Theatre Festival, August 2007.

    Films

  • Langrishe, Go Down
  • Betrayal
  • 84 Charing Cross Road
  • Jacknife
  • The Trial
  • Time to Say Goodbye?
  • ''The Confession''

    Television

Produced and presented the BBC arts magazine Monitor and Review. Also produced Kean for BBC television .
Directed the following productions:
  • Langrishe, Go Down
  • Look Back in Anger
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • Pericles, Prince of Tyre
  • The Devil's Disciple
  • The Christmas Wife
  • Fire in the Dark
  • And Then There Was One
  • Is There Life Out There?
  • A Christmas Carol
Also various episodes of:
  • Picket Fences
  • Chicago Hope
  • The Practice
  • Law & Order: SVU
  • 7th Heaven
  • ''Bones''