William Bridges-Adams

William Bridges-Adams (1 March 1889 – 17 August 1965) was an English theatre director and designer, associated closely with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from 1919 until 1934.

William Bridges-Adams was born in Harrow, England, the only son of Walter Bridges Adams, tutor, and his wife, Mary Jane née Daltry (1854–1939) and grandson of the author and inventor William Bridges Adams. He was educated at Bedales School and Worcester College, Oxford.

At Oxford, Bridges-Adams joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society and played the leading roles of Leontes in The Winter's Tale and Prospero in The Tempest, but his talent for direction and design was already leading him from acting to a backstage role. He staged two operas for Sir Hugh Allen, and directed the Oxford millenary pageant. His design was influenced by the Post-Impressionists and by personal contacts with Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon.

After Oxford, Bridges-Adams began working in the professional theatre in 1911 under the managements of Laurence Irving, William Poel, Harley Granville-Barker and George Alexander. During this period Bridges-Adams occasionally worked as an actor, but more usually as a director and as a designer for other directors' productions. His first London production was in 1912 (a play called Job, for the Norwich Players), and he became producer for the Bristol Old Vic repertory seasons, 1914–1915, and the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool, 1916–1917. His designs for stage scenery included The Loving Heart at the New Theatre in 1918 ("Quite the happiest feature of the production is Mr Bridges-Adams's scenery," said The Times) and no fewer than nine Gilbert and Sullivan operas for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, beginning with Iolanthe in 1915, followed by Patience (1918), The Sorcerer, The Pirates of Penzance, Princess Ida, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard, and The Gondoliers (second act), all in 1919, and Ruddigore (1921).

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