Colin George(1929-2016)

Graduating from Oxford, Colin George started a touring Shakespeare Company. Before you could say "To be or not to be" he had played Romeo, Petruchio, Bassanio, Cassius, and Henry V - the latter on BBC television. Having added Hamlet and Brutus to his Shakespeare roles, in his forties he turned to directing. He established the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with international designer Tanya Moiseiwitsch, at the instigation of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, and inspired by their theatres in North America at Minneapolis and Stratford, Ontario. After six years in Australia as Artistic Director at The State Theatre of South Australia Adelaide, and eleven as Head of Acting at the prestigious Academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong, he returned to his first love -- acting, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1993, leaving them in 1999. He then toured his one man show - 'My Son - Will !', which premiered at Stratford. His forty five years experience as a performer ranges from the classics - Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov and Moliere to musical comedy ; his television appearances include a spell in the world's longest running soap opera Coronation Street; and on film - a Kung Fu movie. He has directed internationally in Ottawa, and Stratford, Canada; in Belgrade, Jugoslavia, in Warsaw, at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and his Chinese production of "The Bacchae" toured to Beijing and Shanghai. Having taught for eleven years Colin is an experienced director of workshops and has lectured on the Greek and Elizabethan theatre. Colin's editor and director of My Son - Will! for the Royal Shakespeare Company's Fringe Festival was Anthony Naylor. He was a member of the RSC in the seventies, began directing in the eighties in London, moved to the United States, where his credits include twenty five off, and off-off Broadway productions and several nationwide classical tours.