Bill Kenwright - Producer
Recent West End productions include: Judi Dench in Hay Fever (Haymarket), The Crucible (RSC - Gielgud), Whistle Down The Wind (Palace), Woody Harrelson in The Night Of The Iguana (Lyric), A Man For All Seasons (Haymarket), Scrooge The Musical (London Palladium), Rob Lowe in A Few Good Men (Haymarket), The Big Life (Apollo), Elmina’s Kitchen (Garrick), Festen (Lyric), Man and Boy (Duchess), We Happy Few (Gielgud), All’s Well That Ends Well (RSC - Gielgud), The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed (RSC - Queen’s), The Secret Rapture (Lyric), Tell Me on a Sunday (Gielgud), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (New London), the RSC Jacobean Season (Gielgud), Home and Beauty (Lyric), Via Dolorosa (Duchess), Sleuth (Apollo), The Constant Wife (Lyric), Dangerous Corner (Garrick), Star Quality (Apollo), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Lyric), Caught in the Net (Vaudeville), Barbara Cook Sings Mostly Sondheim (Lyric), Gondoliers (Apollo), Ghosts (Comedy), Fallen Angels (Apollo), Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Lyric), Brief Encounter (Lyric), Miss Julie (Haymarket), Song at Twilight (Gielgud), Stepping Out - The Musical (Albery), Hurlyburly (Queen’s), Pygmalion (Albery), Lady Windermere’s Fan (Haymarket), Shakespeare for My Father (Haymarket), Passion (Queen’s), Company (Albery), Design for Living (Gielgud), The Roy Orbison Story (Piccadilly), The Miracle Worker (Wyndham’s), Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Moonlight (Comedy), Dead Guilty (Apollo). Directed by Peter Hall: Hay Fever, Mind Millie for Me, The Master Builder, and Jessica Lange in A Streetcar Named Desire (Haymarket), School for Wives (Piccadilly), Hamlet and An Absolute Turkey (Gielgud), The Gift of the Gorgon (Wyndham’s), Lysistrata (Old Vic, Athens), Separate Tables (Albery), and She Stoops To Conquer (Queen’s), Waiting for Godot, The Misanthrope, Major Barbara, Filumena, and Kafka’s Dick (Piccadilly Theatre).
On Broadway: Festen (Music Box), Primo (Music Box), The Glass Menagerie (Barrymore), Travels With My Aunt (Wyndham’s and Minetta Lane Theatre, New York - Drama Desk award), Dancing at Lughnasa (Garrick and Plymouth Theatre, Broadway - Tony award), Medea with Diana Rigg (Wyndham’s and Longacre Theatre, Broadway - Tony award), Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (Belasco Theatre, Broadway - four Tony awards), Theatre de Complicite’s production of Ionesco’s The Chairs (Golden Theatre, Broadway - six Tony nominations), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Music Box).
Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers will shortly celebrate its twentieth year in the West End at the Phoenix Theatre. It ran for three years at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway, receiving seven Tony nominations.
As a director he is responsible for Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the national tours of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman’s Whistle Down the Wind, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar and Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers. He was nominated for a London Theatre Critics’ award for West Side Story at the Shaftesbury and a Tony award for Blood Brothers in New York.
His films include The Day After the Fair, Stepping Out, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, Charles Busch’s Sundance Festival award winner Die Mommie Die and The Purifiers. He co-produced the phenomenally successful national arena tour of Elvis - The Concert with Elvis Presley Enterprises.
He received an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool’s John Moore’s University and is an honorary Professor of Thames Valley University in London. In 2002 he received the Variety Club Bernard Delfont award for his contribution to the entertainment industry. January 2001 brought him a CBE in HM The Queen’s New Year’s Honours.
He is Chairman and major shareholder of Everton Football Club (and an even bigger fan).
