Terence Knapp
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Terence Richard Knapp (14 February 1932 – 12 August 2019
Youth and early career
Knapp was born in Hackney, London, England, the firstborn and only son of seven children of Capt. Richard Henry Knapp, RAMC and Alice Catherine (née Carey Keegan) Knapp.
The family was evacuated from London during
On a scholarship from the London County Council, he was given a place at the Preparatory Academy for a year, until he was of age to be admitted to RADA. He was reassessed and formally admitted to RADA. Knapp was seen in an Academy performance of She Stoops to Conquer and signed by a leading theatrical agent; however, at the age of 18, he was drafted for the National Service.
He was trained in the
Early career
In 1953, after three years in the RAF, he returned to RADA and was awarded the Academy Medal in the Annual Showing, also the sought-after prize of a year's engagement at the doyen of British Repertory Theatres, the
He was invited by John Neville, then Artistic Director of the Nottingham Playhouse, to tour West Africa for the British Council, along with a company including Judi Dench, who played Viola in Twelfth Night to Knapp's Feste. The company performed in Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone for three months, after which Knapp found an opportunity to travel in Africa and Europe, where at Easter he had an audience with Pope John XXIII in Rome.
In 1966, after four years with Olivier, he was again invited by Neville to tour for the British Council, this time in
In the summer of 1966, he was summoned back to England to join John Neville's Nottingham Playhouse company, spending two years with Neville and a brilliant young American associate director, Michael Rudman, playing a succession of leading roles, including Oberon, Tony Lumpkin, and Octavius in both
In the summer of 1968, having just played
Later in that year, sponsored by Olivier, he received a Churchill Fellowship in the Performance Arts of Japan and was off to Tokyo for nine months, with a Berlitz crash course in Japanese and generous introductions to star actors, choreographers and scholars for the study of Kabuki, Noh and, in particular, with the legendary "Charlie Chaplin" of Kyogen, Nomura Manzo. He was to return to Japan many times over the next twenty-five years to direct a score of Japanese language productions, mostly of Shakespeare, often in partnership with
In 1970 for the City of London Summer Music Festival Knapp performed the premiere of Alexander Goehr's Shadow Play Two and Father Christmas in Burtwhistle's Down By The Greenwood Side.
"Hawaii's World Class Actor"
In Tokyo, Knapp met Kabuki scholar, Earle Ernst, the founding Chairman of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Kennedy Theatre. In 1970, he was invited by Ernst to go to Hawaii as a Visiting Professor to create a Performance and Production program, focusing particularly on the plays of Shakespeare and other European "classical" playwrights, as well as distinguished American authors.
In 1976, Knapp directed himself in the titular role in Aldyth Morris' Damien, a one-man show about Father Damien. Damien was ultimately broadcast nationally on PBS and won the following awards: George Peabody, Ohio State, Christopher awards for author and director, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Honorable Mention for Drama, and the National Association of Educational Broadcasters Award for Art Directing. In addition, he was recognized by the Hawai’i State Legislature as Hawai’i's Adopted World Class Actor.[2] for this role.
Professor Knapp received the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching in 1977. He remains at the University as Emeritus Professor after 35 years of teaching, after being named as one of the Fabulous Ninety Faculty in celebration of the Ninetieth Anniversary of the University.
In 2001, the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival was dedicated to Knapp in perpetuity.
In last years he continued to work in Honolulu as a mentor, a song and poetry recitalist, and an occasional performer on stage, screen and television.
Selected stage, screen and television roles
In addition to the roles mentioned above, Knapp was honored to be chosen as a member of the ensemble performance on the occasion of the seventieth birthday of Sir Noël Coward, in the presence of HRH Princess Margaret at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in 1970. In 1972, he performed in Beyond the Fringe under the auspices of US Army Special Services. He created a Hawaiian Monarchy version of Mozart's Così fan tutte for the Hawai’i Opera Theatre, which received national recognition. He also adapted Gounoud's Faust for young audiences, served as performer/narrator in Verdi's Otello with the Hawai’i Opera Theatre and gave lectures from 1971-2003 for the Friends of the Hawai’i Opera Theatre in conjunction with upcoming productions. He appeared at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in the leading role of Abbot Seigen in The Scarlet Princess of Edo by Namboku IV and Dr. James Brandon. He is perhaps best known internationally for his many performances as Father Damien, the leper priest of Moloka’i, at the Kennedy Theatre at UH Manoa, at Kalaupapa Settlement, Moloka’i, Hawai’i, at Sophia University in Tokyo, at Manoa Valley Theatre, in a gala performance at Honolulu Hale (Honolulu City Hall), at the Historiche Damiaanstoer in Tremeloo, Belgium (Damien's birthplace) and in the Peabody and Ohio State award-winning television production. Dr. Knapp has often appeared with the Honolulu Symphony as narrator and recitalist for such productions as Schumann's Manfred, Honegger's Joan at the Stake, Schoenberg's Survivor from Warsaw, Prokofiev's Peter And The Wolf and many Shakespeare-inspired compositions by Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and others.
Other favorite roles include Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, the title role in The Miser, and King Lear in Carol Sorgenfrei's Cordelia Victorious, at Kennedy Theatre; Fagin in Oliver!, King Arthur in Camelot, Archie Rice (the Olivier role) in The Entertainer, Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady and Gallimard in M. Butterfly, all at Diamond Head Theatre, Honolulu, as well as Noël Coward in Noel and Gertie, Salieri in Amadeus and The Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Manoa Valley Theatre. One-man shows include Captain Cook, RN by Aldyth Morris in Hawaii and Einstein Talks Like a Regular Guy (Dowd) at the University of Cape Town and the Pretoria Technikon, South Africa, performing the Einstein piece also in Hawai’i. From 1971-2005, Knapp was the featured performer in annual Shakespeare Birthday Shows at Kennedy Theatre and from 1993-2005 performed annually at (Robert) Burns Night for the Caledonian Society of Hawai’i.
Television performances, in addition to Damien, include several featured roles in the Hawaii Five-O, Magnum, P.I. and Big Hawaii series. From 1977-1982 he regularly hosted Spectrum–Hawaii, interviewing various celebrities and distinguished artists on Hawaii Public Television (KHET).
Awards and honors
- Royal Society of Poetry, Certificate of Merit (1947)
- Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Medal, Diploma of Distinction, Comic Mime Prize, Arliss Prose Prize, Liverpool Playhouse Scholarship and offer of H.M. Tennant One-Year Contract (1954)
- Recipient of Churchill Medal, presented by Queen Elizabeth (1969)
- University of Hawai’i Board of Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching as a Senior Professor (1977)
- Nominated by Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper, as a State Cultural Treasure (1978)
- Recipient, State of Hawai’i House of Representatives Resolution: "Hawaii's Own Adopted World-Class Actor", his Damien Public Broadcasting system telefilm received Peabody and Ohio State University Awards (1979);
- Recipient, University of Hawai’i Clopton Award for Distinguished Community Service(1980)
- Numerous Hawai’i State Theatre Council Po’okela (Excellence) Awards including Director of Romeo and Juliet, Kennedy Theatre; Lead Actor and Director, Amadeus and Best Performance in a Musical for Noel and Gertie (1986); Director, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1987)
- Recipient, Certificate of Appreciation from Friends of the Hawai’i Opera Theatre for twenty years of lectures on opera production, lives of composers, etc. (1990);
- Recipient of Presentation Clock in appreciation of twenty-five years of lectures for Friends of the Hawai’i Opera Theatre, Recipient, Scot of the Year Award, Caledonian Society of Hawai’i; Laureate: National Society of Arts and Letters (Hawai’i Chapter) (1995).
Publications
- The Training of the Young Actor in Japan, Shimbun Darts, 1974
- Dialogue article with Donald Keene on the problems of directing in the Japanese language, Shjingekidan Kumo, 1974
- "The Kawasugi Journal", Onstage Studies, Number Six, published by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, 1982
- "Genesis of Damien", Hawai’i Catholic Herald, 1996
- Hawaii's Adopted World Class Actor (with Hilda Wane Ornitz), Xlibris Corporation, Copyright 2000.
References
- ^ Downes, Patrick (22 August 2019). "TERENCE RICHARD KNAPP 1932–2019". Hawaii Catholic Herald.
- ^ 1979, Hawaii House of Representatives Resolution #762
Additional Source
- Knapp, Terence with Hilda Wane Ornitz Hawaii's Adopted World Class Actor (2000)
External links
- Faculty biography from the University of Hawaii at Manoa
- Terence Knapp at IMDb
- Honolulu Star Bulletin feature about Knapp's retirement
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