Success Stories
Peter Land is one of Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School’s most successful and busy international stage actors. He has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre in the UK as well as working on screen for the BBC and recording with Placido Domingo.
Peter White (Land is his stage name) was born in Taihape, New Zealand and educated at Palmerston North Boys’ High School. He caught the ‘acting bug’ when asked by Murray Lynch to act opposite him in Harold Pinter’s The Dumbwaiter. He graduated from the Drama Department at Victoria University.
It was during a season of James K. Baxter plays in 1973, that playwright Bruce Mason insisted he should audition for the newly created two-year NZ Drama School (Toi Whakaari) course, from which he graduated in 1975.
After Drama School Peter started at Auckland’s Mercury Theatre and worked in the repertory system in plays by Christopher Hampton, Robert Lord, and William Shakespeare; with music by Gilbert & Sullivan, Stephen Sondheim and Kurt Weill; with actors like George Henare, Jan Bashford, Lee Grant and Rawiri Paratene.
(Photo of Peter Land & Frances Edmond at NZ Drama School in 1975)
Peter’s first television role was as Parry Percival in Opening Night starring English Film and TV Star George Baker (of current Wexford fame). Peter asked Mr. Baker whether he thought he would “make it” in England, Baker replied “You … Yes!” so Peter bought his air ticket to London the next day.
Peter arrived in London in October 1977, and grew increasingly desperate for work and food. He spent some time in London’s still thriving Music Halls before obtaining a role in Oh Calcutta! (Duchess Theatre). In the same year he was cast by veteran TV director Terence Dudley in the BBC series The Secret Army as Erich Devouglaar, a Flemish youth destined for the Eastern front during WWII.
In October 1978 Sir Cameron Mackintosh cast Peter in his first major UK role – Freddy Eynsford-Hill in the revival of My Fair Lady, which toured Britain before coming into London in 1979. Peter’s West End Musical debut was at the Adelphi Theatre, and was directed by the legendary lyricist Alan Jay Lerner himself. The show also starred British film actress Dame Anna Neagle, Tony Britton as Higgins and Liz Robertson as Eliza. It was during My Fair Lady that Peter met his future wife, the show’s renowned choreographer, Gillian Lynne.
In 1981 Peter was cast as The Balladsinger opposite Sir Michael Gambon in the Royal National Theatre production of the Howard Brenton adaptation of Bertold Brecht’s Life of Galileo. This led to other National productions including Sung and Unsung and To Those Born Later.
In 1982 Peter joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon to play Dion (and understudy Polixenes) in A Winter’s Tale directed by Ronald Eyre and starring Patrick Stewart as Leontes and Gemma Jones as Hermione. He also appeared as Proteus in Two Gentlemen Of Verona directed by John Barton and Trevor Nunn, and in Titus Andronicus as First Goth. His next RSC role was as Captain Dumain in Trevor Nunn’s Alls Well That Ends Well with Dame Peggy Ashcroft at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. This production transferred to The Barbican and then onto Broadway at the Martin Beck Theater.
While in America, Peter’s extensive British TV credits: The Secret Army, Androcles and the Lion (with Billy Connelly) and The Other Half (all for BBC), were added to by his appearance opposite Dee Wallace in the CBS remake series of The Twilight Zone.
Along with his many Cast Albums and radio appearances Peter has recorded On The Street Where You Live with Placido Domingo for An Evening With Alan Jay Lerner recorded live at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; appeared in the 1991 and 1993 Royal Variety Show’;, played Cecil Beaton in Garbo – The Musical and his CD That’s What Friends Are For! was filmed after performances at the Westbeth Theater in New York and the Mayfair Theatre in London.
In addition to his acting work Peter helped found Los Angeles based Soulife Records in 1999 deciding to back new singing talent. He helped to promote singer Anthony Hamilton while his other signed artist, Sunshine Anderson’s debut single CD topped the Billboard Album and R&B/HipHop Charts early 2001.
Peter’s other theatre work includes: 1985: Cable in South Pacific (Coventry), Six For Gold (King’s Head), 1986: Cliff in Cabaret (Strand), 1992: Andre in Phantom Of The Opera (Her Majesty’s), Dion Bouccicault in Streets Of Dublin (Brixton Shaw), 1993: Snodgrass in Pickwick with Sir Harry Secombe (Sadler’s Wells), Noel Coward in Noel And Gertie (Theatre Royal Windsor), Jermyn Street Revue (Jermyn Street Theatre), Stephen Haggard in The Craft Of Comedy with Patricia Routledge/Forces Sweethearts with Joanna Lumley (Minerva Theatre, Chichester) and Lord Louis Mountbatten in Partition 1948 (Bombay, India). Peter celebrated the Centennial of Noel Coward’s birth with Blithe Spirit for BBC Radio 2 and in Noel Coward Tonight as George Pepper in Red Peppers (Jermyn Street Theatre).
In 2001 Peter was critically acclaimed as Whitelaw Savory in the successful run of the Kurt Weill / Ogden Nash / S.J.Perelman musical One Touch Of Venus (King’s Head Theatre), a performance he repeated at staged readings in New York opposite Spamalot’s Tony Award-winning actress Sara Ramirez as Venus. The idea was to take the production to New York but this workshop took place two weeks after September 11th and naturally no American producer wanted to commit to the musical.
During the 2006/2007 Christmas season Peter originated the roles of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in the premiere stage-production of a new adaptation of Peter Pan using the complete Leonard Bernstein score (King’s Head Theatre).
In 2007 he appeared in a new musical version of The Prince and the Pauper, a new play called A Day in Summer in the Garden. In 2008 he appeared opposite American TV & film actor Rene Auberjonois in Moliere’s Le Malade Imaginaire, directed by Keith Baxter at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC.
