Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE (22 November 1930 – 11 September 2017) was an English theatre, opera and film director.

[5] Before taking up a further scholarship to read English at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, Hall did his National Service in Germany at the RAF Headquarters for Education in Bückeburg.

Whilst studying at Cambridge he produced and acted in a number of plays, directing five in his final year and a further three for The Marlowe Society Summer Festival.

[8][9] The production's success transformed his career overnight and attracted the attention of, among others, Tennessee Williams, for whom he would direct the London premieres of Camino Real (1957)[10] and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958),[11][page needed] and Harold Pinter.

[13] Hall made his debut at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1956 with Love's Labour's Lost: his productions there in the 1957–1959 seasons included Cymbeline with Peggy Ashcroft as Imogen, Coriolanus with Laurence Olivier, and A Midsummer Night's Dream with Charles Laughton.

He founded the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)[9] to realise his vision of a resident ensemble of actors, directors and designers producing both modern and classic texts, with a distinctive house style.

Hall's many productions for the RSC included Hamlet (1965, with David Warner), The Government Inspector (1966, with Paul Scofield), the world premiere of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming (1965), and The Wars of the Roses (1963), adapted with John Barton from Shakespeare's history plays.

He supervised the move from the Old Vic to the new purpose-built complex on London's South Bank "in the face of wide-spread scepticism and violent union unrest, turning a potential catastrophe into the great success story it remains today.

Upon leaving the NT in 1988, Hall launched his own commercial company with productions in the West End and on Broadway of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending (with Vanessa Redgrave) and The Merchant of Venice (with Dustin Hoffman).

The Peter Hall Company went on to stage more than sixty plays in association with a number of producing partners including Bill Kenwright and Thelma Holt.

In addition to an ensemble repertory season at the Old Vic (1997), the company enjoyed a long collaboration with the Theatre Royal, Bath where a series of summer festivals were staged from 2003–2011: many productions were subsequently performed on domestic and international tours and in the West End.

The plays produced included Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband (1992), Pam Gems' Piaf (with Elaine Paige, 1993), Hamlet (with Stephen Dillane, 1994), Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder (with Alan Bates, 1995), A Streetcar Named Desire (with Jessica Lange, 1996), Julian Barry's Lenny (with Eddie Izzard, 1999), As You Like It (with Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens, 2003), Brian Clark's Whose Life is it Anyway?

(with Kim Cattrall, 2005), the fiftieth anniversary production of Waiting for Godot,[17] Coward's Hay Fever (with Judi Dench, 2006) and Shaw's Pygmalion (with Tim Pigott-Smith and Michelle Dockery, 2007).

He directed a number of productions there including Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, which opened the building in 2008, and A Midsummer Night's Dream (with Judi Dench as Titania, 2010).

[23] Hall also directed Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten, Cavalli's La Calisto, Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (all with Janet Baker); L'incoronazione di Poppea and Carmen – both with his then wife, Maria Ewing, with whom he also staged a celebrated Salome (The Royal Opera London and L.A. Opera) in 1986.

[24] Opera magazine noted Hall's characteristics as (in relation to La Cenerentola at Glyndebourne) "dignity and emotional veracity", recalling that "he would always insist that 'the singers, like actors, played off each other'".

His only American studio movie, the 1995 erotic thriller Never Talk to Strangers, "proved to me that I have no aptitude whatever for surviving the Hollywood rat race," as Hall wrote in the updated edition of his memoir Making an Exhibition of Myself.

The Peter Hall Diaries – the Story of a Dramatic Battle, edited by John Goodwin (Hamish Hamilton) were first published in 1983 and documented his struggle to establish the National Theatre on the South Bank.

"[38] Richard Eyre called Hall the "godfather" of British theatre: "Peter created the template of the modern director – part-magus, part-impresario, part-politician, part celebrity.

"[39] Impresario Cameron Mackintosh said: "It's thanks to Peter Hall that people like Trevor Nunn, Nicholas Hytner and Sam Mendes transformed musical theatre around the world.

"[40] Theatre critic Michael Coveney said that he believed Hall's production of The Wars of the Roses "recast the [Shakespeare] history plays and put them at the centre of our culture".