Brook, Peter Stephen Paul (1925– )

English theatre director with a particularly innovative avant-garde style. His work with the Royal Shakespeare Company (which he joined in 1962) included a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970), set in a white gymnasium and combining elements of circus and commedia dell'arte. In the same year he founded an independent initiative, Le Centre International de Créations Théâtrales/The International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris, France. Brook's later productions aim to combine elements from different cultures and include The Conference of the Birds (1973), based on a Persian story, and The Mahabarata (1985–88), a cycle of three plays based on the Hindu epic.

Brook served as director of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, London, England, from 1947 to 1950. His films include The Beggar's Opera (1952), Lord of the Flies (1962), Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979), and The Mahabarata (1989). He is the author of the influential study of contemporary theatre The Empty Space (1968), and of the essays and observations published in The Shifting Point (1988).