I’m not sure I would have posted an obit for Terry Hands, former head of the Royal Shakespeare Company, if it hadn’t been for one particular element in his resume.
Mr. Hands was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for almost a quarter-century, joining it in 1966 to run Theatregoround, an outreach program. In 1978 he became joint artistic director with Trevor Nunn, and from 1986 until his departure in 1990 he was the company’s chief executive.
One highlight of his tenure there was his work with the actor Alan Howard, whom he directed in an ambitious staging of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV, Part 1,” “Henry IV, Part 2” and “Henry V” at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1975, with Mr. Howard starting out as Prince Hal in the first play in the cycle and growing into the title character in “Henry V.”< Another noteworthy pairing came in the 1980s, when Mr. Hands directed Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” Derek Jacobi and Sinead Cusack starred in both, as Cyrano and Roxane in the first and as Benedick and Beatrice in the second. Mr. Hands moved both productions to Broadway in 1984, running them in repertory.
So what was that element? He also directed the original 1988 Broadway production of “Carrie”.
With music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford and a book by Lawrence D. Cohen, the show had had a rocky start at Stratford-upon-Avon, but Mr. Hands, who directed, took it to New York anyway. Critics were unkind, to say the least. Mr. Rich, singling out a scene involving the slaughter of a pig, invoked another famous Broadway flop.
“Only the absence of antlers separates the pig murders of ‘Carrie’ from the ‘Moose Murders’ of Broadway lore,” he wrote in his review.
“Carrie” closed three days after it opened and has been something of a theatrical reference point — and not in a good way — ever since. Mr. Hands, though, who during his Royal Shakespeare tenure had pushed to expand that company beyond its comfort zone, had known that failure was a possibility and had embraced the challenge.
Joseph Shabalala, founder of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The current NYT obit is an early incomplete one, with promises of a full obit later.
Mr. Shabalala began leading choral groups at the end of the 1950s. By the early 1970s his Ladysmith Black Mambazo — in Zulu, “the black ax of Ladysmith,” a town in KwaZulu-Natal Province — had become one of South Africa’s most popular groups, singing about love, Zulu folklore, rural childhood memories, moral admonitions and Christian faith.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s collaborations with Paul Simon on the 1986 album “Graceland,” on the tracks “Homeless” and “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes,” introduced South African choral music to an international pop audience.