Episode 108: "Stirring Up Sheffield" with Tedd George

Introduction to The Crucible

0:00Hi, and welcome to the Theatre History Podcast. I'm Mike Liger. In the 1960s, the English city of Sheffield began work on a new theatre. The new venue, called The Crucible, became an important landmark in the development of theatres in the UK, as well as a point of

0:33contention nationwide. At the center of it all was Colin George, who spearheaded the building of The Crucible and fought for its then-unconventional design. Although George passed away in 2016, his memoirs of this era appear in a new book, Stirring Up Sheffield, an insider's account of the battle to build The Crucible Theatre. It's co-authored by Dr. Edward George, an economist, broadcaster, and writer who's especially well-placed to help tell the story,

Colin George's Background

1:00since he's also Colin's son. Ted, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks. It's really good to be on the podcast. Who was Colin George, and how did he end up involved with the Sheffield Playhouse? Well, Colin George was my dad. He was a Welshman, and he was passionate about acting ever since he was a kid. I mean, at school, when he was at university reading English at Oxford, I think he spent more time doing reviews and plays than he did actually studying. But as soon as he finished at university, he went straight into acting. In fact, he founded a company of players called

1:32the Oxford and Cambridge Players, from actors from Oxford and Cambridge University, including a number of names which became huge in theatre. Peter Hall, John Barton, Toby Robertson. So they toured for a number of years. Then the company broke up, and he joined the Coventry Rep, and then went to the Birmingham Rep. In those days, they were repertory theatres. That's how you learned your... That's how you learned the ropes, so to speak, as an actor in those days. And then he eventually moved into directing at the Nottingham Playhouse. And so he already had, I would imagine,

2:02you know, a decade or more of experience as an actor, a director, as a travelling player, when he was finally invited to Sheffield in 1962 to interview for the job of assistant director at the Sheffield Playhouse. And that's where the journey started. But I think when he arrived, he had no idea that he was arriving at a time of real change for the theatre in general, but also in Sheffield. And that would, of course, ultimately lead to the Crucible.

Innovations at Sheffield Playhouse

2:27Yeah. And even before the process that leads to the Crucible, your father's doing things somewhat differently. What does he start to sort of realise needs to be done at the Sheffield Playhouse? Where does that eventually lead him? Yes. I mean, he was certainly very radical in the way he did theatre. He was very interested in new playwrights, new kinds of theatre. He wanted to get away from this boring proscenium arch where it's almost like on a television screen, everyone's playing face out to the audience, very kind of stylised acting, not naturalistic. So he wanted to break down the

2:57barriers in that sense. He did a lot of new or unknown playwrights. If you think Sheffield's first ever Pinter, their first Brecht, their first Pirandello, all of those caused huge walkouts by some of the conservative Sheffielders, but also walk-ins by a lot of the younger generation who were interested. He even did the first Sothocles in Sheffield, a production of Oedipus. That was 2,000 years after it was written. So, you know, you could say he was looking everywhere for inspiration. But he also did, for example, the first musicals at the Sheffield Playhouse, reviews, poetry readings. He was trying to do this whole thing

3:30of reaching out to the people. And that's what all theatres do nowadays. But it was much less done in those days. And of course, perhaps something which was central to what he did, but also to the creation of the Crucible is Children's Theatre. He met a young teacher called Dorothy Vernon, who eventually became his wife and my mum. She was running a theatre club for kids called Pegasus Theatre. He brought that into the Sheffield Playhouse. And they eventually set up their own children's theatre company, Theatre Vanguard, one of the first ever theatre in education teams in Britain. And basically, children's theatre became central

4:03to it as well. So there was so much about what they were doing at the Playhouse, which was unusual, including like lots of local plays. And their big, big hit in 1966 was The Stirrings in Sheffield on Saturday Night by Alan Cullen, which when it was suggested to the board that we're going to do a musical about trades unions, they're like, oh, no, that'll empty the theatres. But of course, it was a music about Sheffield. And it had the music of Roderick Horne and my mother singing it as well. And it was a massive hit. And really, that's what made the people

4:33fall in love with the theatre again. It was new work, and it was about Sheffield. And of course, that's why we called the book Staring Up Sheffield in homage to that great show.

Building a New Stage

4:42Now, he's already undertaking these new projects, as you've mentioned, children's theatre, work that reflects the history of Sheffield itself. But eventually, it comes time to build a new stage. There's a need for a new venue. And at this point, Colin George, your father, start to take some inspiration from some pretty important figures in 20th century theatre. Let's start with Tyrone Guthrie. For those who might not be familiar, who is Guthrie? What role did he play in the development of The Crucible?

5:15Yes, I mean, Tyrone Guthrie is an absolute great of theatre. Everyone from my generation knew Guthrie. In fact, they would talk about him in almost quiet tones. Guthrie, the people who knew him really well were allowed to call him Tony. By 1967, when he met my dad, he was already well established in theatre. He had worked in, you know, UK, Europe, North America. He was very well known for his Shakespearean productions, but also opera he directed, and also a lot of new writers as well. He's quite radical. But it was almost by mistake in the 1920s that he came across this

5:47reimagining of the thrust stage. If you imagine ancient Greek theatre, where you have almost a semi-circular stage, and the audience wrapped around it on three sides, with the actors in the centre of the action. He reimagined that, first at the Edinburgh Festival in the assembly rooms there in 1948. And then when he got the money for it, he went and built a dedicated thrust stage theatre in Stratford, Ontario, which I believe he visited, still going strong. And then there was a follow-up in Minneapolis, the Guthrie Theatre named after him, which was also a thrust stage. So by the time he

6:21met my father, he was the thrust stage man, he came to give a talk at the theatre. And afterwards, Dad was chatting with him as the artistic director, and had told him, look, we're going to have a new theatre, we just don't know really what to go for in design. And Guthrie said, well, you know, what are you thinking of? And Dad told me the story that he said, well, you know what, we've often found that with the children's theatre that we do, if we go into the main hall, we never get up on the stage. We just put the chairs in a circle, and the kids act in the middle, and we want something that kind of intimacy. And so Guthrie said, have you ever seen any of the thrust stages in North America?

6:52And he's like, no, he's like, you need to. And so the thing is, when Guthrie wanted something to happen, he knew how to make it happen. And so the next day, he convinced the board. And one month later, Dad was on a plane to North America, along with David Brayshaw, who became the first administrator of the Crucible, and also a dear friend of the family. And in 10 days, they saw the key thrust stages. And the very first night they arrived in Minneapolis, they went to see a show in the Guthrie, and Dad was just blown away by the stage. There's a beautiful description in the book when he first

7:23saw the stage. You know, he said he wanted to ascend the brightest heaven of invention. But as anyone knows, if you go into a proper thrust stage theatre, particularly if it's full of people, you walk in there and suddenly, wow, you see this bare stage and everyone around it, you know something incredible is going to happen. It's not like in a proscenium theatre where the curtain might be down, or even nowadays when they have the curtain up, but you've got a set which is kind of dead. There's nothing there. And then when the actors come out with all of their costumes and little bits of scenery, suddenly everything comes to life. So what he saw in the Guthrie Theatre,

7:57and then also afterwards, he went to Stratford, Ontario, he was convinced they would need a thrust stage theatre. But Guthrie's support went well beyond that, because of course, he convinced the board of the Sheffield Theatre, let's build a thrust stage. He was a major supporter of the whole enterprise. And when the press were against it, because they didn't like the idea, it was new fangled, and it was modern, even though it was based on an ancient format. He fought back very strongly. And he was very much a mentor to my dad. I mean, he even got him a few gigs directing on the thrust stage in North America to get him ready. And so I think the great tragedy of the story is that

8:31he was due, Guthrie, to do a double header with dad at the opening of the Crucible in 1971. First was going to be Guthrie's The House of Atrius, a spellbinding production that he did in 1967 in Minneapolis, but also that toured America as well, designed by Tanya Bezevich. Dad was going to do his opening of Pier Gint. And then tragically, only about three or four months before the Crucible opened, Guthrie died of a heart attack. So he never really got to experience this amazing theatre. He did see it, he did see it

9:01being built. The front page picture of the book is Guthrie visiting that day in January 71. But I think that was one of the kind of tragedies about the Crucible story is that dad didn't have his great mentor with him and inspiration when the theatre finally opened.

Opposition to the Thrust Stage

9:15One of the things about your father's memoirs, which are sort of part of this book, I think that are particularly interesting are the ways that he talks about how you can use this thrust stage, how it's different from what had been sort of the standard, what had come before. You already mentioned, you know, his sort of reaction to sort of seeing these thrust stages like the Guthrie for the first time when he toured North America. What ultimately happens? I understand that the project goes forward, they come up with this sort of amazing design for this new stage. It's got all these new

9:45potential sort of benefits, but at the same time, it attracts a fair amount of opposition. Could you maybe tell us a little bit more about that? Absolutely. Well, listen, I think the thing is nowadays, there are a lot of thrust and open stages around the world. And most modern theatres are fully adaptable. If you think of the Bridge Theatre in London, for example, it is a thrust, but it can also be proscenium, it can be in the round if you want as well. But in those days, there really weren't many thrust stage theatres or nothing really like it. It's just straight on proscenium. And in fact, a lot of them built after the wall were incredibly boring, almost like a cinema. If you imagine a completely flat wall, where you have the

10:20curtain down, and then the audience. So a total division between the two. Now the thrust stage goes right back to the origins of theatre, the actor is in the middle of the audience, they surround them on three sides. So the thing is, that means it's an incredibly intense connection that you get. If you've ever stood on a thrust stage, you naturally gravitate to the central point, the, you know, the, the centre of gravity of the stage, you can hold everyone in your eye as you speak to them. Whereas if you're on a proscenium stage in a huge theatre, with the lights on, you very often can't see more than the front row. And anyone in the gods, I mean, they might as well be in a different postcode.

10:54So it was a much more intense experience. But I think part of the reason there was opposition to this idea is the existing generation of actors, particularly the older ones, they didn't know how to act on it. They felt incredibly exposed, and really worried about it. They had their style of acting. I mean, in particular, Sir Bernard Miles, who was already well known for his mermaid theatre, which wasn't really a thrust stage, it was an open stage, you could say. But he really believed everything had to be done face on. And so the idea that suddenly someone could see Hamlet's arse, as he said, he thought was ridiculous. But of course, as anyone knows, if you've ever been in

11:28a group of people, life is in 3D. Sometimes it's actually more dramatic if you're watching a production where you're looking over the back of someone having an argument with someone else. Or let's say someone does a big reveal, you don't want to look at their face, you want to look at everyone else to see how they react. And so if you had their, if they had their back to you for that moment, you'd probably get a better moment theatrically than someone sitting in the middle with a perfectly framed picture in front of them. And of course, the idea of the thrust stage is you move around a lot, there's a lot of action and movement. So even if there's a moment, you don't

12:01get that view, you can't see the actor, it's constantly changing. And so I think that's why there was quite a bit of opposition to it. Number one, they didn't really understand it. But number two, quite a few of theatre practitioners at the time were frightened of it. Nowadays, if you go and see actors, I couldn't find a single actor when I was doing this podcast series for the Crucible talking about acting on the thrust stage, they all said, Oh, it's so natural. It's so wonderful. No one was like, Oh, no, I felt very uncomfortable. But this was the early 1960s when they were designing and building it. Yeah, it's such a striking contrast, you talking and we'll talk about, I understand you've

12:33done a podcast series sort of about the Crucible. But it's such a striking contrast hearing you say that talking to all these working actors. And then by contrast, you mentioned Sir Bernard Miles and these other people who were opposed to it back in the 1960s, the early 1970s. And so many of the sort of objections that you and your father quote in the book are like, Well, okay, if I'm sitting in the middle of the house, I get it, that'll look okay. But what's going to happen if I move to one of the sides, if I'm off on, you know, sort of the sides of the stage, I'm not going to get the same good view, right? It's so striking to hear that as kind of a, this is the way we do it. And how could we

Tanya Mosayevich's Design Work

13:08possibly do it another way? Exactly. And also, it's so interesting, because they're like, we wouldn't get the best view. Now what you get, and this is what dad always said, you get an equally good view, but you get a different performance. If you've ever had the opportunity to see the same show, and you sit in the middle, and then you sit on either sides up down below, it's a completely different show. And I've certainly seen a show when I was right around at the side, and I was completely taken in by it as well, thanks to the direction and the acting on the stage as well. So the thing is, it's a different experience, but also, nearly everywhere you sit in the auditorium at the crucible, you can see other

13:39members of the audience. So you don't really want to be in the middle, because then you don't see them. And just like in a football crowd, if you think of the cop in Liverpool, right? Okay, it's exactly the same kind of thing. When everyone laughs, you laugh together. When people are shocked, you're shocked together. And even though they kind of blend into the background, the rest of the audience, you get this sense of a shared ritual. And that gets back to the origins of Greek theatre as well, which they really understood, this sense of a shared ritual together. So I think that's the real thing, which is so incredible about it. These ideas, oh, where's the best seat?

14:10I remember saying to Dad, when he, one of his last performances was at the crucible in 2011, in a production in Barthello, and I said, you know, I was going for the opening night, I said, Dad, get me the best seat. And he's like, Ted, there are no best seats. Okay, they're all good, the seats. Though, I should point out that he did sit me, I looked out carefully for where he got the seat, because obviously, as the former assistant director, he could get any seat that he wanted. And I was over one of the vomitries, there are these tunnels which go out for the actors at the front of the stage. And I thought, ah, this is the best bit. But then afterwards, several actors

14:41told me, they're like, no, no, no, that was the best seat for his scenes. He was blocking me so I could see his scenes best. But generally speaking, a lot of people say sitting over the vomitries is the best. But in all honesty, I've sat all over the auditorium. It's a different, but equally valid show wherever you sit. Now, we've been talking a lot about the acting, the directing, but design doesn't really get left out here. Because one of the major figures, someone who you've already mentioned in our conversation here, that's involved with The Crucible at the time

15:11that your father is, is Tanya Mosayevich. Who was she? And what made her design work so unique? Yes, I mean, Tanya is one of the ones who's really been forgotten in the past in The Crucible story. And I must say, I'm really happy with the book that we've managed to shine a light again on the work that she did in Sheffield. If you look up Tanya Mosayevich on the internet, you can see loads about it. But there's always a footnote, oh, and she worked in Sheffield. No, Sheffield was her masterpiece. The point is, she was a designer, she had designed productions a lot with Guthrie, but with other people as well in the UK, in Ireland, in North America. But she also

15:45got into a particular kind of design for a stage with Guthrie, which was very bare and lean, moving towards this idea of a thrust stage. So she designed the thrust stage in Stratford, Ontario for the first festival in 1953. She designed it again when they turned it into a permanent theatre. She redesigned it when they did a refurb there in the 1960s. She also designed the thrust stage at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. So by the time she came to design the thrust stage at the Crucible, she knew exactly what was required. And the thing about Tanya, everyone says about her,

16:20is that she had the most incredible understanding of measurements. She absolutely knew the measurements down to the last inch. And it was inches in those days, you'll be glad to know. And these measurements are perfect. So I mean, if you stand in the auditorium of the Crucible, it is perfect. Things like, for example, the height of the ceiling. Many people have mentioned that to me. Actors, directors, lighting designers as well. She said the ceiling has to feel like the ceiling in one of those Victorian houses, very high, but also enclosing you. You don't get this sense it disappears off

16:50into nowhere. And then if you stand in what is the golden circle, or the sacred circle, as it's called, towards the front of the thrust stage, that is the centre of gravity for the actor. The architect, Nick Thompson, called it the red dot. And everything from the building emanates from there. And all of her designs about the size of the stage, etc. were absolutely bang on. And they've never been bettered. You get that wrong by a foot, two foot, and you lose that connection with the audience. So that's one thing she did. But also, the other thing is that she was the one who came

17:25up with the vomitries. Now, she didn't like the word. She called them tunnels. They call them the voms in the Crucible now. But essentially, what they are is at the front two edges of the stage, left and right. Actors exit out and into the audience. Now, in the case of Chichester, which was an earlier thrust stage, the actors then have to basically get to the dressing rooms by going out of the exits that the audience come up. But in the case of the Crucible, and also uniquely in the case of Stratford, Ontario, the vomitries go under the audience. So they are totally separate. It's a

17:56separate world the actors go out from and come in from. And Tanya's great ability here as well to say, she said, why don't we have them doubling back and coming back under stage? So she put backstage under the stage. And for that reason, the stage is hollow, if you like, there's a huge air underneath. But what this means is people can run on incredibly fast back and forth. I mean, the word vomitry actually comes from the amphitheaters of the Romans, vomitoria. The idea is they would spew forth wild animals and gladiators, and then they'd pull all the dead bodies back in incredibly fast.

18:27But it means you can have these incredibly fast change of scenes, very dramatic moments. And even you can bring a car onto the stage, which is what they did on the opening night of the Crucible. So she was definitely the one who came up with this idea for the vomitries, and they really contribute to the whole design of the auditorium. But also a lot of subtle things she did, like the colours. The back wall is always a problem in thrust stage theatres, because if it's just big and there, there's nothing there, it can draw attention. Now what they do in Elizabethan theatre, you put a balcony up there and columns. But that

18:59causes problems with sight lines and blocking. So what she said is, no, we need a colour on the back there, which is basically completely nondescript. Black doesn't work, you get reflections from black, white is too imposing on the eye. And so they were looking around trying to find this colour. And eventually they called in the ICI rep, who was the guy who did paint in those days. And as he walked in the door before he even opened his mouth, she pointed at his Trilby hat and said, that colour. And so Trilby brown, that is the colour of the back wall, perfect. But even the colour of the stage itself, she wanted it to be an old stage, right? Even though it was a new theatre. And so even though

19:35the architect repeatedly said to her, when are you going to decide on the paint for the stage? She's like, leave it with me. And when they finally built the stage out of this plywood, she went down on her hands and knees, and she stained it herself. And she stained it until she got that right colour, it looked like old used wood. So the thing is, there's so much about her design, which is central to everything that works about the crucible. And the great thing is, you just wouldn't know if you went there because it works so perfectly. Now you mentioned the opening in 1971, you mentioned a full-on car on stage. I understand that wasn't maybe the only attraction to the initial performance.

The Crucible's Opening Season

20:10Among other things, there was a particular up and coming young actor who was involved with the performance. Yes, that's right. And that was Ian McKellen, or Sir Ian McKellen today. Yeah, so he was already quite well known by 1971, but doesn't quite have the fame that he has nowadays. And the thing is, he had actually been in one of the first productions he'd worked in, had been with Guthrie at the Nottingham Playhouse. So he knew Guthrie well. And of course, Guthrie had died, they were going to be opening the crucible. And dad said, why don't we warm up the theatre before we start with the proper plays? So it was essentially a night of reviews. It was called

20:43Fanfare. It started with children's theatre, of course, the future generation on stage. And then part two was a serious play, had to be a one act. And so they chose Swan Song by Chekhov. And they asked Ian McKellen if he would act in it. And so he got a former colleague of his from the National Theatre, Edward Petherbridge, to play the prompter. And they essentially rehearsed it and performed it on the stage. Remarkable. But the funny thing is, that was the start then of something very special for Ian. Because while they were doing the rehearsals for this production, they were talking so much

21:15about, isn't it great that we've got a company here where we have one actor playing a very small part and another a big part? Wouldn't it be great if we could have a company where everyone plays different roles and it's all a company together? And the director just said to them, look, why don't you stop talking about this and do it? And so they did. And so right after the crucible, they set up The Actors Company, which ran for a couple of years with some of the greatest actors of the generation. So it was the start of something really important. And in fact, Ian McKellen has remained a huge, a huge friend of the crucible ever since and has done a number of events there and talks, though I'm not sure if he's actually performed in a play there since 1971. Oh, of

21:50course. And I should say, and he wrote the foreword to Staring Up Sheffield, for which we are very grateful. What's the reaction like to the initial seasons in the new crucible under Colin George, your father's direction? Well, I think it's fair to say that it was mixed. I mean, if you bear in mind in the lead up to when the first design brief came out for the crucible in 1969, we had the three knights, supposedly, who rose up against it. One was Sir Bernard Miles, I'd mentioned. Laurence Olivier really just didn't like the thrust stage because Chichester, where he'd worked, the design wasn't very good back then as well. But when the actual new season

22:25opened, it was it was ultimately the knives were out. There were many people who didn't want to see this new theatre prosper. And so they were determined to criticise it. So there was criticism, for example, why didn't you open with the Sturrings in Sheffield? Well, that had already been done three times. Why open a theatre with an old production? You want to do something new. Other people said the productions were pretentious because they opened with Shoemaker's Holiday and Pierre Gint, even though Pierre Gint is one of my favourites and one of my dad's favourites actually throughout his life. One of the aldermen said, why didn't they open with an Agatha Christie?

22:56I mean, really, you know, so there was a lot of pushback there saying, hey, this is a bit of a, you know, intellectual folly. This isn't for the people. But the numbers told a different story, because of course, they did all sorts of things. They did pantomime, they did ballet, they did music, all sorts of things the first season. The big problem was money. And the reality is in the first season, yes, it lost money. But I'm an economist. So the one bit of the manuscript my dad didn't get quite right was the numbers. And I went back and looked at all the numbers because all the papers are there. And I find it extraordinary. If you look at the numbers for the Crucible Theatre, the final,

23:30final cost of it was something like £874,000, which in modern money is, I don't know, about £12 million, maybe that's about 15, $16 million. Okay, that was 2% over budget. And it came in one week late on a three-year schedule. I mean, mind-bendingly good. Nowadays, if a project opened and it was £50 million over, they'd be opening the champagne saying, man, that we managed to do it. But the idea that the production or that the company should make a profit in its first season, I mean,

24:00that's just sort of unheard of nowadays. You expect a new theatre to bed in. So what happened is at the end of the first season, there was a report by the city treasurer who were ultimately bankrolling the Crucible, who said, this is losing huge amounts of money, we need to make huge cuts. And so there was a lot of back and forth in the press. And at one point, one of the aldermen came out and said, there's too many chiefs and not enough Indians, where, you know, that's how people spoke in the 70s. But essentially, what he was saying, too many people in charge, we don't have enough of the smaller staff. And essentially, they wanted blood, they wanted to introduce huge

24:32cutbacks, but more than anything, they wanted a scalp. And unfortunately, that scalp was Tanya Masevich. Now, she had done the design of the Crucible. And dad and David had said to her, look, stay on, design some productions, you know, share your incredible knowledge with this new generation of talent coming up. But by all means, go off and do other things. But that means that she was, even though she was called Queen of Design by my father, her official role was consultant. And as anyone who's worked as a consultant knows, if the money is short, the first person who goes is a consultant. So as far as the city treasurer is concerned, she was a consultant they could get rid

25:06of. But to dad, that she was the soul of the theatre. You know, everything about its design was in there. And she was teaching people how to use her masterpiece. He'd lost Guthrie only a few months before the Crucible opened. So I think Tanya being pushed out in that way, that basically was just too much for him. And so it was towards the end of 1972 that he resigned. And he did agree to do a long handover up until 1974, when he finally left. But I think he did leave with that cloud over him. And even though at the end, it was very successful, the final seasons, and it was all sweetness and light

25:39on stage when he said his farewells. I think he bore that with him, that sense of betrayal about what had happened at the end with the Crucible. And it was a long time before he got over that one. Yeah. As you mentioned, you know, 1974, your father and the Crucible, so to speak,

Aftermath and Legacy

25:54kind of go their separate ways. What's the rest of the story, both with Colin George and with the Crucible? Well, the great thing with the Crucible is, I mean, look, it went through ups and downs. The big discovery for the Crucible, of course, was snooker in 1977, because, you know, the Crucible stage was designed so that you could see an eyeball, right? But you can also see a cue ball. And it is utterly perfect for snooker, because of course, you can lower the stage. So everyone looks down onto the snooker. But the snooker not only put the Crucible on the map internationally, but it brought in a huge amount of money. And with that, that could help subsidize

26:26the theater. And then under Claire Venables in the 1980s, the Crucible also incorporated this beautiful Sprague Theater. If you imagine a beautiful proscenium arch theater from the late 1800s, which was derelict at the time, they restored that. And that's become part of Sheffield Theaters. So you have the Crucible Theater, you have what was called the studio as part of it. And right next to it, you have the Lyceum Theater. So it has gone from strength to strength. And when it was just finishing its refurbishment in 2010, that's when the new artistic director, Daniel Evans, reached out to my

27:00dad and said, Why don't you come and give a talk. So my dad had gone off, you know, a successful career, a lot of it, he went to Australia, he was artistic director of the Adelaide State Theatre Company, he was in Hong Kong, as head of drama at the new Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. And he'd also come back to England and was acting. And when he was at the RSC, and this was he must have been in his 70s, or 60s, is when he met a young actor called Daniel Evans, and they became really good friends. And so years later, Daniel is taking over the Crucible and said, Look, come up and give a talk about the Crucible. And I went to

27:34see the talk. And I think that was the genesis of the book. Because I think for dad to go back there and to be welcomed with open arms by the people of the Crucible, they showed him so much love. And this incredible story came out on stage, which I'd never heard before. And so Daniel said to him, Look, will you come back next year, we're doing a special 40th anniversary production, and it's going to be Othello, will you come and play a couple of roles? And he said, Yes. And so as it turned out, on dad's 82nd birthday was opening night. And there he was acting on the stage that he had helped create. And I think that really did help

28:07put put to bed, you know, a lot of the ghosts that he'd been carrying around. And it was while he was there, that he started writing the manuscript, which he completed the following year. So obviously, this is a very personal project for you working on this, helping to finish the book. But before we get into that, I'm just kind of curious from more of a professional standpoint, you're a political scientist and economist by training. Your previous published work includes things like a study of the Cold War era, Cuban intervention in Angola, which seems like a bit of a leap from that to a work of theatrical memoir in history. Could you just maybe tell us a little bit

28:42about what it was like to kind of switch gears in terms of disciplines? Oh, absolutely. Completely. Yes. I mean, I'm just I've always been very curious. And I have a whole series of interests out there. I mean, I'm a linguist. So I speak various different languages. I've traveled all over the world. I'm interested. A lot of the work I do, for example, is around sustainability, commodities, African markets, fintech, I mean, all over the place. But I've always been very creative as well. And I think the thing is, I don't know, or at least before stirring up Sheffield, I didn't know too much about theater design. But I did know a lot about theater because

29:13I come from a theater family. So you know, I can actually say that my the first time I performed was when I was three years old on the stage of the Sydney Opera House, because my mom was in the production of the Doll's House, and they needed three kids. And so she needed a babysitter much easier, bring him to the theater and have him on stage with her, you know. So I certainly by you know, over the last few, well, certainly when I was a younger man, I acted a lot. I directed plays as well. And I did a bit of professional acting. So theater to me isn't sort of unknown. And there was so much about the discussion of theater, which I understood. But the truth is, I really didn't know

29:45anything about theater design, architecture. And there were so many parts of the story that I simply didn't know. I mean, all of this happened before I was born. I was born 1972, the Crucible was already open. I actually had a theater christening on the stage in August 1972. So literally all those parts of the story were already being forgotten by the time I was growing up. And yeah, without a question, it's it's the most difficult task I've ever undertaken. I think I was like one of a number of people who basically when COVID came along, and the very first lockdown said, well, why don't I make

30:17something of this? And I knew that the anniversary was coming up the following year would be 50 years for the Crucible. My father had left this manuscript that I hadn't had time to read. And I thought, let's do it. And so there were like 40 boxes of stuff that he kept. He really was a hoarder. I mean, everything, original designs, all of the different notes of the committee meetings, his notebooks, which were amazing for different thoughts, diaries, letters, you know. So I just basically threw myself into it, learned a lot on the way, made a fair number of mistakes as well and assumptions. But I think what

30:47was really helpful is that there was a big network of people who knew my father. And through them, I finally met Nick Thompson, who was the original architect of the theatre. And the thing is, there were so many brilliant people who were very young at the time. Nick Thompson was 37 when he took over in charge of that. And his draftsman was in his late 20s. So they're all still around. And Nick Thompson opened an entire world for me about the design process. Because of course, my father was focused on trying to run a company, you know, the Sheffield Playhouse and trying to set up a new theatre company at the

31:19Crucible. But everything about what happened with the design, the engineering, all that sort of stuff, Nick opened an entire world to me there. And I think that's what then gave the book its balance. Because it's not just about, you know, on one level, it's very much about what inspired this theatre, what was it supposed to be all about? But the other part about this is how was this translated then into a design by Tanya Mazzevich, then into an architectural design by Nick Thompson, and then into brilliant engineering solutions by theatre projects and the various people involved. So I think it's the way they match up the vision, and let's say the craft, the incredible craft to

31:53build this place. That's what makes the Crucible so special. So that was certainly my conclusion at the end of it. But it was quite wonderful. I tell you, you know, if you think of some of those dark days of the COVID lockdowns, when everything was so uncertain, I was essentially in my mind wandering around late 1960s Sheffield in my dad's shoes, you know, and kind of reliving the life he was and just slowly working my way through the story. Yeah, it really sounds like it was this kind of significant experience for you to engage with it. Like I said, not just as sort of a,

32:23not in terms, just in terms of writing the history, but also just sort of being able to walk in your dad's shoes, as you say. And I understand as well. On that point, this is one of the complicated things about it as well. It's one of the most difficult things is when I'd finished the edit was who wrote the book, right? Because obviously, it's my father's manuscript. So I thought, am I editor? But the truth is, I did intervene quite a bit. And I didn't put in anything that he wouldn't have said, or I didn't use any language he wouldn't have. But I was very, very confused. And I'm very grateful for our proofreader, Oliver

32:54Schick. He just said to me, you're co-author. He's like, don't worry about it. You're co-author. You took the manuscript, turned it into a book. And that way, it's basically dad and me. So, you know, I ghost wrote it for dad, and his ghost wrote through me as we wrote the book, essentially. And I understand you're also getting this published with your sister, Lucy, yes? That's right. So this is one of the great things. I mean, it really is a George family production. So my sister, Lucy, she said to me when I was working on getting the manuscript together, she said, I'll give you some help getting it published. So sure enough, 1st of January 2021,

33:27as she always does on New Year's Day, right, let's get this done. I've read the manuscript. I said, look, can you help me get it published? Can we find a publisher? But both of us were previously published authors. And the truth is, you know, you probably are yourself. One of the big issues here is when you go to a publisher, there's always a series of rules. Oh, you can't have photographs, you know? I mean, I couldn't have photographs in my book on the Cuban intervention. I went into the war zone and nearly died getting some of those, right? Oh, no, no, you can't have photographs. What do you mean? Oh, you have to cut 50,000 words. Why, right? So I wanted to have that control. And I mean, there's over 200 images in the book. I wasn't going to hold back on that.

34:00So a week later, my sister comes back and says, you know what, we're probably going to have to self-publish, right? And then another week later, she's like, forget it. I'm setting up my own imprint. We're going to publish it ourselves. So she set up an imprint at a company, Wordville, and really took the bit between her teeth. And the thing is, it was just such a wonderful process. I mean, we learned so much in terms of the process of publication. You know, ultimately, all the choices were ours. Yes, we could have really good color, but it's going to cost you. Yes, you can have this many pages, but it's going to cost you. And you make the decisions yourself. But after I completed the book, my sister went off. And like a good George with a good idea,

34:33Wordville Press has grown dramatically. Earlier this year, it acquired San Amanda Street. And now they have something like 130 books in place under their name. And she's a major publisher. So she was the one who originally came up with the name, Staring Up Sheffield 10 years ago. And now she is a publisher. So it really has been quite a transformative process, this book for all of us. How can people listening to this learn more about The Crucible, about Colin George? I understand, among other things, we talked about this earlier, but you've got a podcast series where you spoke to actors involved in The Crucible over the years.

35:05That's right. Yes. Yes. So I spoke with Rob Hastie, who's the artistic director, and he said, why don't you create a podcast series to coincide with the 50th anniversary? So it's all focused on working on the thrust stage. If you look up on any of the podcast channels, Crucible at 50, that I talked to actors, directors, designers, writers, we went into the archive. And we also talked to Rob Hastie about his vision for the future of the theatre. But this is what is fascinating about so many of the actors. I mean, they all have totally different ideas and discussions, but

35:38there's a real convergence in the way they all talk about the theatre, this remarkable experience. And it really does come down to what Rob Hastie says. It feels like magic, but it's not magic, it's craft. And I was fascinated by the learnings, particularly of the actors, of some of the tricks that they come up with when they're acting. And of course, some of the things that go wrong on stage, how you get around it. One of my favourite stories is Alex Young, who's a very well-known actress. She's been in all their big productions, most recently Standing at the Sky's Edge, which transferred to the National Theatre in London. She was saying that during Wizard of Oz,

36:11all of the monkeys on stage were on rotorskates, which was great until they had to go offstage, down a ramp into the vomitorium. And they basically had to put crash mats at the bottom and an ASM to catch them when they came offstage. So wonderful stories about it. But yeah, if you want to listen to that series, it really does tell you all the different aspects, even things like lighting, stage design, how they come together, and how it really represents a different kind of challenge when you're looking at an open stage compared to the more traditional proscenium that most people are familiar with. So, Ted, as we close here, I'm just curious,

36:45on a personal level, what does it mean for you to have, you know, as you said, co-authored the book to sort of see the reaction to it as it's been out for a little while now? How does that feel? I must say it's extraordinary. I mean, for me, it's just, you know, to finish the great work of my father. I mean, what is more rewarding a task than that out there? You know, it's definitely one of the hardest things that I've ever done, because of course, he wasn't around, but he'd left all the materials that I needed. And in fact, everything I've done in my life up to that point made me the perfect person to do this project. You know, I probably knew my father better than almost anyone

37:17except maybe his wives, you know. And so it was, it was a wonderful opportunity to rediscover his life. I mean, the whole period as well, when he first went to Sheffield, up to the opening of the Crucible is when he met my mother, they got married, they had my two sisters and me. I mean, it's about not just the birth of the theatre, about the birth of my family, you know. So there was something very personal about that to be able to complete the cycle, if you like. But I think what I really hope about the book now that it's finished, I think on one level is I really hope people realise how hard all of the people who worked on it fought against real ignorance to stick

37:50to their vision. There were so many times people said, this will not work. No, let's go for something more simple. And they said, no, they really stuck with it. And that goes from the trustees and the board all the way down to the people involved in it. They were determined to create this pure Guthrie thrust stage. And arguably, it's never been bettered anywhere in the world. But I think the other thing I hope people get from the book is if you've ever been to a thrust stage theatre, and particularly if you do know the Crucible and you've been there, there'll be so many things going on there that you just won't realise. And that's what's been so fascinating for

38:22me is discovering these clever little tricks, which work so effectively that simply the space works on you. It envelops you and takes you in. But you can see that that is a result of brilliant design and engineering. Just to give you one example, if you go up to the foyer, this wonderful kind of flowing staircase and into the foyer, before you enter the theatre, it's set apart like a separate casement, something almost like a holy shrine to enter. And that's deliberate, because Nick Thompson was inspired by the Temple of Agamemnon at Mycenae, which had these

38:53huge doors that you enter, and this increasingly narrow passageway. And that's exactly what it is. You have these massive doors, they open, you go through the narrow passageway. But think about this, you go through the seating and come out in the middle of the auditorium. And suddenly you're in this different place, a completely different world of sensations. So I think that's what's really interesting about the book. There's so much in there, which will explain and help understand people who read it, the incredible experience you get when you go to somewhere like the Crucible. We'll post additional links and images that will let you explore the history of

39:25Sheffield's Crucible Theater, as well as the career of Colin George. That'll all be in our show notes. Ted, thank you so much for talking to us today about the Crucible and your father's legacy. It was my pleasure, Mike. Thanks for having me. If you'd like to continue today's conversation, please visit theaterhistorypodcast.net and follow at Theater History on social media. Please note that, while we usually spell theater T-H-E-A-T-R-E,

39:56it ends in E-R on our social media handle. Our theme music is The Black Crook Gallop, which comes to us courtesy of the New York Public Library Libretto Project and Adam Roberts. Thanks as well to Tip Kress, who designed our logo. And finally, thank you for listening.