Peter Kavanagh is an award-winning director for theatre, film, television and radio. Born and educated in Belfast, he graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an MA and BA Hons (2/1) in English and French Languages and Literature.
After a year in Paris as a theatre and film reviewer for The Irish Times, The Guardian, and Theatre Ireland magazine, Peter directed theatre in Dublin, then trained in Dublin as a film editor in advertising, before joining BBC Northern Ireland as film editor then drama producer. He transferred to BBC Broadcasting House London as producer/director in audio and television drama after working as script editor in BBC Films to Kenneth Trodd, and joined the NFTS Screenwriting advisory panel.
Throughout this productive tenure he simultaneously directed and wrote for stage and television and in 2018 progressed to work full time as a writer/director in theatre and film.
Photo (left to right): Emily Smith, Nick Moran, and Clare Lawrence Moody in the Checkov and de Musset double-bill of The Boor and A Door.
THEATRE PRODUCTIONS:
Peter's recent stage direction and producing include:
Salt-Water Moon (Finborough Theatre)
Cyanide at 5 (King’s Head Theatre)
Not Quite Jerusalem (Finborough Theatre)
The Most Dangerous Woman in America (Windsor Fringe), winner of the Kenneth Branagh Drama Award 2022 (see 'Theatre and TV’ for reviews, awards etc)
Other stage directing include:
The Labyrinth (Royal Court Theatre London, in transfer from Dublin Theatre Festival)
A Door and The Boor, Peter Kavanagh’s translations from de Musset and Chekhov (Chichester Theatre Festival)
Love and the Art of War (King’s Head Theatre)
The musical The Good Companions (Watford Colosseum)
A Selfish Boy and After Prospero (INK Festival / Tristan Bates Theatre)
Photo: Nuala O’Neill & Andrew Scott in I Was The Cigarette Girl.
FILM and TELEVISION and short films include:
Sightings of Bono, starring Bono (All Ireland now / RTE)
I Was The Cigarette Girl, starring Andrew Scott, winner Bronze Medal at the Colombia Film Festival and nominated at the Chicago Film Festival
Sisters with Lisa Faulkner (BBC2)
Photo: Noma Dumezweni in Tamberlaine.
AUDIO and PODCAST include many award-winning productions for Drama on 3, from Sophocles through Shakespeare, Jonson, Strindberg, to Chekhov and Feydeau to Pinter, Stoppard, Barker, Sarah Daniels, Simon Grey and James Graham.
IRISH / EUROPEAN DRAMA
...includes O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock; Synge’s Playboy of the Western World; Friel’s Aristocrats and Faith Healer, and Beckett's The End. Ibsen plays include The Wild Duck in a version by Christopher Hampton, Rosmersholm translated by Frank McGuinness, and The Lady from the Sea.
Photo: James Purefoy in Le Cid.
CASTS:
...among the many wonderful actors Peter has been fortunate to work with are Benedict Cumberbatch, Lia Williams in Tom and Viv; Toby Jones in Dr Freud and Mrs Hitler; Charles Dance, Romola Garai, Martin Freeman in A Man For All Seasons; Sorcha Cusack, John Kavanagh in Juno; Ian MacDiarmid, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams in Volpone; Fiona Shaw in Strindberg's Playing with Fire; Stephen Rea and Sinead Cusack in Ulysses; Tim McInerney, Janet McTeer Marivaux's False Servant .
Photo: Danny Sapani in Tamberlaine.
Among collaborators on Shakespeare: Simon Russell Beale, Emma Fielding, Sophie Dahl, Martin Jarvis, Saskia Reeves, Bill Nighy, Juliet Aubrey, Miriam Margolyes, Philips Jackson, Amanda Root, Sian Philips.
Photo: Haydn Gwynne in A Fire in the Sun.
AWARDS
Sony, Writer's Guild, BBC Audio Awards, Prix Futura and other awards and nominations include Sonys for True West and Tin Drum, a Prix Italia for James Joyce's The Dead and a Special Commendation for Harold Pinter's Landscape, starring Pinter and Penelope Wilton.
Nominated for Best Director by the BBC Audio Awards in 2017, he continues to direct, write and translate for stage and television drama.
Some Testimonials
From BRIAN FRIEL:
Dear Peter,
Congratulations on your [production of the] Faith Healer.
I think you did an excellent job. I loved the three actors who got the rhythms and cadences perfectly and carried their stories with vigour and clarity. All in all a true and moving reading of the play.
Thank you for doing it, Peter, and for doing it with such intelligence and fidelity. Perhaps we'll do something else together.
Warmest good wishes,
Brian
From DAVID POWNALL:
One good reason for coming back from Australia was your production of The Caretaker. We thought it was marvellous.
Casting David Warner as Davies was a masterstroke. A very fine, skilful piece of work.
Many congratulations,
David
Photo: Ailsa Joy in the Peter Kavanagh-directed production of Paul Kimber's Not Quite Jerusalem.
From PAUL KEMBER:
I just wanted to put this on record, for what it's worth. Peter Kavanagh’s production of Not Quite Jerusalem had possibly the finest cast I've had, and that includes many in the U.K., U.S. and other countries. I was thrilled with the production.
It was excellent, very funny, moving and truthful to my intent as a writer, in large part due to Peter's approach, the most sensitive and accomplished I've come across in years. Peter is highly intelligent and has an amazing gift. It's always about the truth for Peter. Always. He doesn’t compromise, he doesn’t give in and he produces magic, which, for me, is what theatre is about.
From MICHAEL HASTINGS:
Your All’s Well was wonderful. We listened rapt throughout.
I feel very safe in your hands, indeed, delighted to be one of your writers.
Michael
From DON TAYLOR:
Dear Peter,
I think Flee as a Bird is terrific, beautifully acted, and very moving. Very much what I intended.
Thanks for a wonderful job.
Don