Peter Daubeny

Sir Peter Lauderdale Daubeny (16 April 1921, Wiesbaden, Germany – 6 August 1975, London) was a German-born British theatre impresario.

Daubeny trained with Michel Saint-Denis^[1] and began his career under actor-manager William Armstrong at the Liverpool Playhouse. Losing his left-arm at Salerno in 1943 led to him abandoning an acting career and staging his own productions including Franz Werfel's Jacobowsky and the Colonel in 1945. The London visits of the Berliner Ensemble in 1956 and the Moscow Art Theatre were organised by Daubeny.^[2]

He is best remembered for his organisation of the World Theatre Season, which brought foreign theatre companies to London between 1964 and 1975. Amongst other honours, he was knighted in 1973.

References

1. Dan Rebellato "Daubeny, Peter" in Colin Chambers (ed) The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre, London: Continuum, 2002 [2005], p.194
2. Phyllis Hartnoll The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p.207-8

• Michael Denison, ‘Daubeny, Sir Peter Lauderdale (1921–1975)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004