Herbert Prentice

{{Short description|British theatre producer and director}}

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Herbert Major Prentice (1890–1963{{efn|Some sources erroneously give his year of birth as 1896, and his year of death as 1955}}) was a British theatre producer and director, and founder of the Sheffield Repertory Company.{{cite book |last1=Elkind |first1=Elisabeth |title=Guide to the Herbert M. Prentice papers 1925-1960 |publisher=The New York Public Library Billy Rose Theatre Division |url=https://nyplorg-data-archives.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/collection/generated_finding_aids/the21400.pdf}} He also wrote scripts for some of his productions.

He was born in June 1890, the son of Thomas and Hezia Prentice.{{cite web |title=1891 Census |url=https://www.ancestryinstitution.com/imageviewer/collections/6598/images/LNDRG12_136_137-0492}}

His first credit was in 1918, as producer of The Silver Box at Sheffield's Little Theatre. After seven years working in Sheffield, where he undertook his own stage design, he worked at Northampton Repertory Theatre. and Terence Gray's Festival Theatre at Cambridge, where in April 1927 he directed George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion.{{cite journal |last1=Cornwell |first1=Paul |title=Sensational with the Greeks and Daring with Shakespeare but Not So Sure about Shaw: Performance of George Bernard Shaw at Terence Gray's Festival Theatre, Cambridge, England, 1926-1935 |journal=Theatre History Studies |date=2009 |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=171–199 |doi=10.1353/ths.2009.0030}}

In 1932 he was taken on by Barry Jackson as a producer for the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, remaining until 1940, producing over nine hundred plays there. During that period he also produced works in London (the first being Once in a Lifetime in 1933) and, from 1934 to 1937, for Barry Jackson's Malvern Festivals.

Several of his Birmingham Repertory productions were aired by BBC radio,{{cite web |title=BBC Programme Index |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/search/0/20?q=Herbert.+Prentice+#search |website=BBC Genome |access-date=9 February 2025}} and in 1938 he directed the Birmingham Repertory Company in a production of Laugh with Me, a comedy, and another of The Wooing of Anne Hathaway, which were screened by the early BBC television service on 2 October and 27 November respectively.{{cite web |title=Laugh with Me |publisher=British Universities Film & Video Council |url=http://bufvc.ac.uk/screenplays/index.php/prog/838 |website=Learning on Screen |access-date=9 February 2025}}{{cite web |last1=Wyver |first1=John |title=OTD in early British television: 27 November 1938 |url=https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/on-this-day-in-early-british-television-27-november-1938/ |website=Illuminations |access-date=9 February 2025 |date=27 November 2024}}{{cite web |title=The Wooing of Anne Hathaway |publisher=British Universities Film & Video Council |url=http://bufvc.ac.uk/screenplays/index.php/prog/1019 |website=Learning on Screen |access-date=9 February 2025}}

After leaving Birmingham Rep he worked at Sheffield, Southport Repertory Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon, Birmingham, Chesterfield Civic Theatre and the Pitlochry Festival.

His dramatisation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland premiered at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in 1947, and was in turn adapted for television by John Glyn-Jones and shown by the BBC on Christmas Day 1948.{{cite web |title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass |publisher=British Universities Film & Video Council |url=http://bufvc.ac.uk/screenplays/index.php/prog/2027 |website=Learning on Screen |access-date=9 February 2025}} The BBC screened another adaptation of the play in 1956.{{cite web |title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland |publisher=British Universities Film & Video Council |url=http://bufvc.ac.uk/screenplays/index.php/prog/55 |website=About Learning on Screen |access-date=9 February 2025}}

Prentice died on 1 June 1963 at Cheltenham General Hospital, two weeks before his 73rd birthday. He was living at The Beehive in Chipping Campden, and was survived by his wife.{{cite news |date=3 June 1963 |title=Theatre Producer Dies |work=Birmingham Mail |page=1 |url= |issn= }} His papers were acquired by the New York Public Library in August 1964.{{efn|The last of these is dated 1960}}