Profile: Daniel Evans
April 9, 2009
Simon Walker tells you a little about the man who will shortly take the helm in Sheffield
New Sheffield Theatres artistic director Daniel Evans’ distinguished acting career provided his fairly recent route into directing. Since graduating from Guildhall School of Music and Drama with a BA in Acting in 1994, he has received three awards and six further nominations; worked with companies including the RSC, Donmar, the National Theatre and the Old Vic; and performed under eminent directors such as Michael Grandage, Trevor Nunn and Matthew Warchus.
Evans has worked extensively with companies of international stature. In the first two years of his career, he worked thrice with the RSC, on A Midsummer Night’s Dream (dir. Adrian Noble, 1994-6) Coriolanus (David Thacker, 1994-5) and Henry V (Matthew Warchus, 1994-5). In 2003, he returned to the RST for Sean Holmes’ Measure for Measure and Dominic Cooke’s Cymbeline. His involvement with the National Theatre comprises five productions in the late ‘90s: Cardiff East (Peter Gill, 1997), Peter Pan, with Sir Ian McKellen, (John Caird, 1997), Troilus and Cressida (Trevor Nunn, 1999), The Merchant of Venice (Trevor Nunn, 1999) and Candide (John Caird/Trevor Nunn, 1999). Since the turn of the century, he has worked with companies including Donmar, on Merrily We Roll Along and Grand Hotel (both Michael Grandage, 2000 and 2004), Wyndham’s, on Sunday in the Park with George (Sam Buntrock, 2006) and his new charge, Sheffield Crucible, on The Tempest (Michael Grandage, 2002) and Cloud Nine (Anna Mackmin, 2004).
Evans enjoyed a cluster of awards and nominations between 2000 and 2003, and another in the past two years. Having been nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor in 2000 for his performance in Candide, he proceeded to win it the following year for his part in Merrily We Roll Along, for which he also won a Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers’ Choice Award. He was honoured for a second time in 2007, in recognition of his role in Sunday in the Park with George, which travelled to Broadway’s Studio 54. In 2003, he was nominated for an Ian Charleson Award, for his performances in English Touring Theatre’s Ghosts (Stephen Unwin) and The Tempest, which played at the Old Vic after its Crucible run ended. However, his performance in Sunday in the Park with George brought him most of his unsuccessful nominations, which were for Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics’ Circle and Drama League awards (all 2008).
Television work, predominantly with the BBC, has also brought Evans success. In addition to period dramas such as Great Expectations (Julian Jarrold), Love in a Cold Climate and Daniel Deronda (both Tom Hooper), To the Ends of the Earth (David Attwood) and The Virgin Queen (Coky Giedroyc), he has also performed in Doctor Who (James Hawes) and The Passion (Michael Offer), as well as ITV’s The Vice (Justin Chadwick). He has acted for five feature-length films, most pertinently an adaptation of Noble’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
However, Evans is relatively inexperienced as a director, and it was probably his merits as an actor that convinced Sheffield Theatres to offer him the post. He has so far directed only three productions: a Peter Gill double bill, consisting of Lovely Evening and In the Blue, (Young Vic, 2005), Saunders Lewis’ Esther (Welsh National Theatre, 2006) and Gill’s Certain Young Men (Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2007). This said, he has undertaken considerable relevant work in education, having taught at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he is an honorary fellow, Arts Educational School and the British American Academy of Dramatic Art, in addition to holding a post as a visiting professor at the University of Glamorgan, in his native Wales.
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