Ken Hill (playwright)
| Ken Hill | |
|---|---|
| Born |
28 January 1937 Birmingham, England |
| Died | 23 January 1995 (aged 57) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Playwright and theatre director |
| Notable work | The Phantom of the Opera |
| Spouse(s) | Toni Palmer (second wife) |
| Children | 2 sons (from first marriage) |
Ken Hill (28 January 1937 – 23 January 1995) was a critically acclaimed English playwright and theatre director.
He was a protégé of Joan Littlewood at Theatre Workshop. He was happiest directing chaotic musicals on the tiny stage of the old Theatre Royal Stratford East, Theatre Workshop's home in Stratford, London, for many years but he also had hits in the West End and abroad, among them The Invisible Man and the original stage version of The Phantom of the Opera, which inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber to create his musical blockbuster of the same title.
His stock-in-trade was musical adventure stories. Like Joan Littlewood, his aim was to make things look fresh and improvised, to which end he might spend hours working on one tiny scene with his cast. He set his lyrics to out-of-copyright popular tunes, so that the audience felt familiar with his songs without ever quite being able to place them, and, more importantly, so that music could be adapted without paying royalties the budgets at Theatre Workshop being famously small. He had an encyclopaedic musical knowledge. For example, in his final show, Zorro The Musical!, his lyrics were accompanied by melodies from 19th-century Spanish operetta.
Ken Hill was born in Birmingham, England on 28 January 1937 and was educated at King Edward VI's Grammar School, Camp Hill, Birmingham, after which he joined an amateur theatrical company, Crescent Theatre, sweeping the floor, making props, writing and directing. His first play, Night Season, was put on at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, in 1963. For a time he worked as an investigative journalist for ATV and it was there that he caused a minor uproar with his report on corruption in Birmingham's local government.
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