Walter van Dyk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article or section needs to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article with relevant internal links. (January 2008)

Walter van Dyk (born May 20, 1961) is a British actor, singer and narrator.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Van Dyk is the son of Dutch composer Rudi Martinus van Dijk and the Montessori educator Jeanne Elisabeth Anna Koning. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, van Dyk was educated at Hull High School in Hull, Massachusetts in the United States, and later studied acting with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof (HB) Studios in New York and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He later studied singing at Trinity College of Music in London. Van Dyk has worked as an actor and singer in a variety of dramatic media including: theatre, film, television and radio. As well as being an actor and singer, he also has forged a career as a narrator working with musicians in classical and contemporary chamber works.

[edit] Career

Van Dyk made his first professional American stage debut in March 1980 at the American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts in the ART's inaugural production of A Midsummer Night's Dream playing Snug, the joiner. Since then Van Dyk has worked on both sides of the Atlantic. London West End theatre includes the London Evening Standard Award nominated Enter the Guardsman directed by Jeremy Sams at the Donmar Warehouse, the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Michael Pennington, the Duke in Two Gentlemen of Verona directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, and George Ketteridge in the Olivier Award nominated production of Cole Porter's High Society. Van Dyk appeared in the USA in 2005 in the Yellow Barn Music Festival production in Amherst, Massachusetts of Peter Maxwell Davies Eight Songs for a Mad King of which Vox/In Camera wrote: "Walter van Dyk in the title role was stupendous. This is a unique piece of music-theatre, the performance at Buckley Hall was superb, notably by the incomparable Walter van Dyk. A performance to remember!" Van Dyk's acting career is not restricted to one medium, he combines stage work with film, television, and radio. In 1992 he played the lead role of Pieter in the BBC Screenplay Can't Stop me Dreaming directed by Bernard Rudden. His television career has continued with roles in The Detectives, Birds of a Feather, Framed, The Basil Brush Show, London's Burning and Love Hurts. Van Dyk played the role of Thoolen in the Warner Bros. film Incognito directed by John Badham.

Van Dyk has made a specialty as narrator of classical chamber music most recently in the 2007 production of Igor Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields at Wilton's Music Hall in London. He has performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, the Cheltenham International Music Festival, and in the United States for Collage New Music in Boston as well as with the Peabody Trio in Chicago, San Francisco, and Boulder, Colorado. Other festivals include Music for Salem in NY and the Yellow Barn Music Festival in Vermont. Van Dyk is currently appearing at the English Theatre Frankfurt as Sidney Bruhl in Deathtrap by Ira Levin.

[edit] Personal life

Since 1995 van Dyk and his partner, British violinist Anthony Marwood, reside in the village of Peasmarsh, East Sussex, which is the home of the Florestan Festival of Peasmarsh every summer in June.

[edit] Theatre credits

[edit] Television and film credits

[edit] Narration and music-theatre

[edit] References

 This article does not cite any references or sources. (January 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.


Persondata
NAME van Dyk, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION British actor and singer
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH