In 1924 Guthrie joined the BBC as a broadcaster and began to produce plays for radio. This led to a year directing for the stage with the Scottish National Players, before returning to the BBC to become one of the first writers to create plays designed for radio performance. From 1929-33, he directed at various theatres, including the Cambridge Festival Theatre in 1929 and a production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author at the Westminster Theatre in 1932. During 1933-34, and again from 1936-45, he was director of the Shakespeare Repertory Company. While in Montreal, Guthrie produced the Romance of Canada series of radio plays for recalling epic moments in Canadian history. The series was broadcast on the Canadian National Railway radio network. Hubert Butler translated the text for Guthrie's 1934 production of Anton Chekhov's Cherry Orchard, for perhaps its first English-language production. In the 1940s Guthrie began to direct operas, to critical acclaim, including a realistic Carmen at Sadler's Wells and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He also returned to Scotland where, with James Bridie in 1948, he staged the first modern adaptation, by Robert Kemp, of Sir David Lyndsay's grand-scale medieval comedy Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis for the Second Edinburgh International Festival; a landmark event in the modern revival of Scottish theatre. Staged in the city's General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on the Mound, specially adapted for the occasion, it was here that Guthrie's hallmark thrust stage first proved its full worth.
Stratford Festival of Canada
In 1952, he was invited to help launch the Stratford Festival of Canada. Intrigued with the idea of starting a Shakespeare theatre in a remote Canadian location, he enlisted Tanya Moiseiwitsch to further develop his thrust stage design, successfully improvised in Edinburgh, and actors Alec Guinness and Irene Worth to star in the inaugural production of Richard III. All performances in the first seasons took place in a large tent on the banks of the Avon River. He remained as Artistic Director for three seasons, and his work at Stratford had a strong influence in the development of Canadian theatre. Guthrie produced Gilbert and Sullivan'sH.M.S. Pinafore in 1960 and The Pirates of Penzance in 1961, which were televised in Canada and also brought to the Phoenix Theatre in New York and on tour in the US. In 1962, as soon as the Gilbert and Sullivan copyrights expired, he brought these productions to Britain; they soon played at Her Majesty's Theatre and were broadcast by the BBC. They were among the first Savoy opera productions in Britain not authorized by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
In 1963, he founded the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, designed by Ralph Rapson. He published a small invitation in 1959 in the drama page of The New York Times soliciting communities' interest and involvement in a resident theater. From that beginning, Twin Cities was chosen and the Guthrie Theater was established, with construction being completed in 1963. Guthrie served as Artistic Director until 1966, and continued to direct at the theater he founded until 1969, two years before his death.
Legacy
In the prologue to his biography, James Forsyth wrote, "Anti-Broadway, anti-West End, anti everything implied in the term 'Legitimate Theatre', he ended up with a legitimate claim to the title of 'most important, British-born theatre director of his time. Sir Peter Hall wrote, "Among the great originators in British Theatre...Guthrie was a towering figure in every sense. He blazed a trail for the subsidised theatre of the sixties. He showed how to run a company and administer a theatre. And he was a brilliant and at times great director..." Guthrie wrote two major books about the creation of effective drama: Theatre Prospect and A Life in the Theatre. Guthrie's autobiography, A Life in the Theatre, was adapted into a stage play, Guthrie on Guthrie by Margaret Dale. It was produced at the Stratford Festival in 1989, and again at the Glenn Gould Studio in 1998 for recording as an audiobook. Both productions featured Colin Fox as Guthrie.
He was Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast. On 15 September 2010 a blue plaque in his memory was unveiled at the BBC in Belfast by the Ulster History Circle.
Personal life
In 1931, Guthrie married Judith Bretherton, who survived him by only a year. He was knighted in 1961, and died a decade later at his home, Annaghmakerrig, in Newbliss, County Monaghan, Ireland, aged 70, from a severe heart attack. His body was buried in the graveyard of Aghabog Church of Ireland, in Newbliss.
