Director from London's Globe Theatre to Direct Hamlet

SALISBURY, MD ---An internationally renowned theatre and opera director and lecturer at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London directs Salisbury University’s production of Hamlet for eight shows beginning Thursday, March 6.

Charles Duff, who in 2000 directed Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at SU, returns to direct this Renaissance tragedy at Fulton Hall Theatre on campus.

Duff, 53, is a bestselling author of The Lost Summer, the Heyday of the West End Theatre. He has worked with university students from Notre Dame, Connecticut, Colorado and St. Lawrence but has the highest regard for students at SU. He is teaching an honors course on the text of Hamlet and the acting Shakespeare class, said SU director of theatre, Dr. T. Paul Pfeiffer, who is hosting Duff and coordinating the presentation.

“He is doing almost the entire play,” Pfeiffer said, which with two intermissions, “will run over three hours.”

Duff’s youth was spent among artists. His father’s best friend was Cecil Beaton, a famed designer best known in this country for his costumes in My Fair Lady. Duff’s great-grandmother, Lady Ripon, brought the Diagilev Ballet to England prior to World War I. His grandmother, Lady Juliet Duff, was close friend to the Broadway actors and husband and wife, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. Duff’s mother even trained and performed as a professional actress prior to World War II.

His titled family associated with both “society” and artists, “but they preferred artists,” Duff said. He bolted from aristocratic tradition entirely when, after arguing with his father, instead of attending university he enrolled in the Bristol Old Vic, one of two of the country’s best drama schools. There he was classmates with Jeremy Irons. After a 10-year acting career he switched to directing, which he said is “what I do best.”

For seven years Duff was vice principal at the London Theatre School and director of productions. The paradox of the one-time failing student becoming an academic and author is not lost on him. “I think my own struggles have made me a more tolerant and kinder teacher,” he said.

Hamlet opens Thursday, March 6, at 7 p.m. with additional evening performances Friday–Saturday, March 7-8 and Thursday–Saturday, 13-15. Matinee performances at 2 p.m. are Sunday, March 9 and 16. General admission is $10, $8 for senior citizens and children. Reservations are recommended by calling the Theatre Box Office at 410-543-6228.

Pfeiffer said the set design is inspired by the wreckage of the World Trade Center and costumes “will be early 17th century.” Rehearsals began in January and included lessons in stage combat.

The cast includes SU student Justin Gallo as Prince Hamlet and behind the scenes is SU student Jessica Fritz, who is the stage and production manager.

For more information, call the Theatre Box Office, 410-543-6228.