Brett Murphy

Tina Packer Director Presentation

Directing I
Theresa Lang

Intro/Early Life
 Born in Wolverhampton, England in 1938
 The daughter of liberal parents who “encouraged their children’s
eccentricities”
o Probation officer/writer and a schoolteacher
 Her liberal family rejected organized religion, embraced vegetarianism and
believed wholeheartedly in education.
 Tina was sent to a Quaker boarding school not far from Stratford-upon-Avon,
where she was taken to see several Shakespeare plays. At that age, she
anticipated becoming a “bohemian” and a writer. Her politics, fueled by
idealism, were always left of center.
 Lived in France at age 17 with older man to live a bohemian existence

Education
 Moved to London, auditioned for theatre schools, accepted to Royal
Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA)
o Full scholarship
 Won the Ronson Award for most Outstanding Actor

Acting
 Within 6 months of graduating Packer had a 3-year contract with the Royal
Shakespeare Company (RSC)
 First show replaced Julie Christie as Luciana in The Comedy of Errors
o Madame Rosmerta in HP3: owner of Three Broomsticks pub in
Hogsmeade
 Her stint at the RSC strengthened her own artistic aesthetic as well as her
opinions about operating an organization. Many of the actors at the RSC
during Tina’s tenure there expressed frustration and anger toward the
management. In The Companies She Keeps, she is quoted as saying, “I
couldn’t understand then why the greatest theatre company in the world
shouldn’t also be the happiest” (26).
 Performed at Stratford, in the West End, and on tour. She has worked at The
Royal Court in London; Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leicester, Coventry and
Hornchurch repertory companies. For BBC Television, she played Dora to Ian
McKellen’s David Copperfield, was a love interest for Patrick
Troughton’s Doctor Who (which she has never lived down), and also
performed in several other TV plays and series
Directing
 By the time she was 30, divorced mother of a son
 Talked herself into a job directing Shakespeare at LAMDA
o Measure for Measure
 Worked with American students and found that “they have a vigor and
directness that English students do not seem to possess, and, in fact, are better
able to express the depth and breadth of emotion felt by Shakespeare’s
characters”
 How did you come to direct Shakespeare? “Well, I loved being a Shakespeare
actor, I was passionate about it, but I was always asking questions about the
whole play. Now I would say they were feminist questions. All of my directors
were men and they were good men, good directors. But I got frustrated. I
started thinking there was something wrong with me. And then I thought, “No,
this is ridiculous, I just have a different perception and I must try and put my
perception into action rather than becoming a grumpy actor.” Once I started
directing there was no stopping me.”

Move to America
 Packer journeyed to the U.S. in the early 1970’s with the idea of creating and
running a theatre company that merged the power suits of British actors and
American actors: the spoken word and the physical body
 She began applying for American grant money to fund a 6-month
experimental program of Shakespeare training and within a year had
received money from the Ford Foundation and CBS.
 Recruited John Barton, her mentor from RADA, John Broom, movement
teacher from RSC, Kristin Linklater, and B.H. Barry to begin a Shakespeare
company in the U.S.
o Successful production of The Taming of the Shrew and the company
moved to Connecticut and they failed
o Ran out of money and Tina wanted a democracy not to be the leader
o Returned to England
 In 1978 founded second Shakespeare & Company with grant from Ford
Foundation at Edith Warton’s The Mount
o First production: Midsummer Night’s Dream

Dropping In
 This is a technique Tina and Kristin Linklater developed together in the early
1970s to create a spontaneous, emotional connection to words. “Dropping
in” is integral to actor training at Shakespeare & Company. According to
Tina, it is “a way to start living the word, of using the word to create the
experience of the thing the word represents.”
Writing
 When did completing the canon become the goal? “I never thought
consciously, “Oh, I’m going to do them all.” But I started noticing a progression
in his writing of the women. In the beginning they’re either shrews or sweet
young things, but by the time he gets to his late plays, he says: “Guys, you have
to go with what the women say. Otherwise we’re all lost.” That really made me
want to keep going.”
 Taught at Columbia University for 4 years in the M.B.A. program and
subsequently published Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership &
Management (2001), co-written with John Whitney, spent several weeks on
the Business Best-Seller charts.
 Her children’s book, Tales from Shakespeare (2004) received the Parents’ Gold
Medal Award, written for Scholastic
 Women of Will (2015): began as a two person show in the 1990s when she
received a Guggenheim Grant to pursue the idea
o In 2009 gave up being artistic director of Shakespeare & Company so
she could return to and finish the work

Awards
 She received the 1992 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction in Boston,
the 1996 Boston Theatre Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, and the 2001
Elliot Norton Award for Continued Excellence in Theatre. She was also the 1999-
2000 Arts Recipient of the Commonwealth Award, Massachusetts’ highest
cultural recognition.
 6 honorary degrees which she is happy about because she never went to real
school