June 29, 2005 -

Ottawa -- Peter Herrndorf, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s National Arts Centre, today announced the appointment of director and playwright Peter Hinton as the new Artistic Director of the NAC’s English Theatre.  Mr. Hinton, who is an Artistic Associate at the Stratford Festival, will succeed Marti Maraden.

Mr. Hinton will work with Ms. Maraden during a two month artistic transition in September and October, and will take over the Artistic Director’s role on November 1, 2005.  Mr. Hinton will serve a four-year term, and will begin the planning of the 2006-2007 season this fall.

Mr. Herrndorf is delighted that Mr. Hinton, “an artist who is respected by his peers, admired by critics and loved by audiences, will join arguably the strongest team of artistic leadership in the country.” Furthermore, Mr. Herrndorf states, “I am certain that under Mr. Hinton’s leadership, the NAC English Theatre will forge a formidable new artistic path, while building on the remarkable successes and strengths of Ms. Maraden’s tenure.  With his passion for Canadian theatre, his remarkable artistic vision and many  talents, Peter Hinton is a superb choice to succeed Marti.”

Mr. Hinton is thrilled to be joining the artistic team at the National Arts Centre. “I am inspired and honoured by the courage of Peter Herrndorf and the selection committee in respecting the importance of the artist at the National Arts Centre. The English Theatre is full of creative possibilities and poised to be a significant centre for theatrical expression in the twenty first century. I am grateful to Marti Maraden, who revitalized the company, presenting a diverse repertoire ranging from new Canadian plays to classical works, both of scale and relevance. I plan to continue this evolution while looking at many new directions for the theatre.  I look forward to working with playwrights, actors, directors and designers from across Canada in order to invigorate the theatre through a theatrical vocabulary restored to language, myth and feeling.”

One of Canada’s most exciting and innovative theatre artists, Peter Hinton has directed over 70 new plays, classical texts and operas in Canada, and is proud to have directed the premieres of work by some of the country’s most exciting playwrights, including Allen Cole, John Mighton, Normand Chaurette,Greg MacArthur, Marie Clements and Maristella Roca.  An accomplished playwright, Mr. Hinton has enjoyed great success on the stages of some of the country’s most important theatres, including the Stratford Festival, where he is perhaps best known in recent years for his stunning trilogy Swanne, the premiere of which he directed over three seasons to impressive critical and audience acclaim.  Currently earning rave reviews from both audience and critics at Stratford is Mr. Hinton’s imaginative directorial rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, of which Globe and Mail critic Kamal-Al-Solaylee raves:

Director Peter Hinton gives the Stratford Festival a much-needed spark of creativity, vision and inspiration with his stylized and conceptually impressive approach to Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tales-based musical.

A former artistic associate at both CanStage (then Canadian Stage) and Theatre Passe-Muraille in Toronto, Mr. Hinton’s productions have garnered 10 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations, and in 1995, he was the recipient of Vancouver’s Larry Lillo Award for directing. 

Ms. Maraden, artistic director of the National Arts Centre English Theatre since 1997 is thrilled to leave the English Theatre in the capable hands of a respected colleague:

Peter Hinton is a superb theatre artist.  He is a renowned and greatly admired director, a writer-creator of theatre of enormous imagination, intelligence and originality and he possesses a vast knowledge of world theatre literature.  He is also honoured and loved by the artists who work with him.

After eight wonderful years as artistic director of English Theatre at the National Arts Centre, years in which my staff and I have endeavoured to make our theatre truly national in its outreach to playwrights, directors, actors, designers, technicians, young artists, students and audiences, I am so pleased to know that an artist of Peter Hinton’s stature will succeed me.  I congratulate Peter Herrndorf and the search committee for choosing a man of such vision and one who is sure to lead English Theatre on an exciting new adventure.

Messrs. Herrndorf and Hinton are available for interviews.

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Jayne Watson
Director, Communications and Public Affairs
Canada’s National Arts Centre
(613) 947-7000, ext. 260
jwatson@nac-cna.ca

Laura Denker
Publicist, English Theatre
National Arts Centre
(613) 947-7000, ext. 389
ldenker@nac-cna.ca