Jeremy Sams

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Jeremy Sams (* 12. January 1957 in London , England ) is a British theater director (especially for musicals ), writer , translator (especially of operas and other stage works ), Orchestra - arranger , film composer and songwriter .

life and career

Sams grew up as the son of Shakespeare expert and musicologist Eric Sams in the British capital.

At Magdalene College of Cambridge University he studied after high school music, French and German and continued his musical training at the Guildhall School of Music , where he specialized in playing the piano. From an early age he hired himself as a freelance pianist and teacher, went on tour as a speaker and worked for a time as a repetiteur at opera houses in Brussels and Ankara .

Sams first became better known in 2000 as the director of a new production of Michael Frayn's Farce Noises Off at London's Royal National Theater (RNT). Production moved to the West End soon after and to Broadway in 2001 .

Director he led also in the West End musical Spend Spend Spend (1999, tells the story of Viv Nicholson, a product obtained in the British lottery fortune squandered), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (2002 stage adaptation of the children's book adaptation Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with Michael Ball , libretto also by Sams). He received Olivier nominations for both pieces . In 2002 his production of Amour hit Broadway. Sams translated the libretto of the musical from French (original by Didier Van Cauwelaert). His efforts earned him two Tony and two Drama Desk Award nominations. He has also directed Jason Carr's and Gary Yershon's musical The Water Babies . The play was performed in the summer of 2003 at the renowned Chichester Festival Theater . In 2008 he brought Jason Robert Brown's musical 13 to Broadway (Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, with Ariana Grande and Graham Phillips , among others ).

Sams translated numerous works, in particular from German and French opera literature, into English, including all of the dramas by Botho Strauss , Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute , Puccini's La Bohème and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen for the ENO ; The Merry Widow for the Royal Opera House , Covent Garden ; Jean Cocteau's Les parents terribles , Molières The Miser and Schiller's Mary Stuart for the Royal National Theater ; The Threepenny Opera for the Donmar Warehouse and Le Prénom for the Birmingham Repertory Theater .

His film compositions also include Jane Austen's Verführung , the BBC film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Persuasion , for which he received the BAFTA Award for best music. Other complete scores are, for example, The Mother (2003) and Enduring Love (2004).

Sams has worked as a writer, composer, arranger and conductor in over 50 theater productions, including The Wind in the Willows and Arcadia for the RNT and The Merry Wives of Windsor for the RSC .

In 1997, Sam's only child so far was born, a son from his relationship with actress Maria Friedman.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New York Times Noises Off Review . In: The New York Times . Retrieved December 18, 2006. 
  2. ↑ Playbill Celebrity Buzz: Schedule of Upcoming Broadway Shows . Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved May 22, 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Sams, Jeremy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British theater director (especially for musicals), author, translator (especially of operas and other stage works), orchestra arranger, film composer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH London , England