Frost/Nixon
June 10 - 26, 2011

Frost/Nixon

FROST / NIXON is a 2006 play by British screenwriter and dramatist Peter Morgan. Its subject is the series of televised interviews that former United States President Richard Nixon granted journalist David Frost in 1977 about his administration, including his role in the Watergate scandal.

The play premiered at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London in August 2006, directed by Michael Grandage and starring Michael Sheen as the talk-show host and Frank Langella as the former president. Frost / Nixon received enthusiastic reviews in the British press. It then played at the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End, again starring Langella and Sheen. On March 31, 2007, the play began previews on Broadway. It officially opened as a limited engagement at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on April 22 and closed on August 19, after 137 performances.

Acclaimed lead actor Frank Langella won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critic’s Circle Award for Best Leading Actor for his riveting portrayal of Richard Nixon.

Ron Howard directed a film adaptation of the play in 2008. After much lobbying, Langella and Sheen reprised their stage roles for the film. At one point it was rumored that Warren Beatty would play Nixon. The film received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. Sadly, it won none.

Peter Morgan

PETER MORGAN (born 10 April 1963) is an English film writer and playwright best known for writing the films and plays: The Deal, The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, Frost / Nixon, and The Special Relationship.

Morgan was born in London, the son of refugees; his father Arthur Morgenthau was a German Jew who fled the Nazis, and his mother Inga a Catholic Pole who fled the Soviets. His father died when Morgan was aged 9. Morgan attended boarding school at Downside School, Somerset, and gained a degree in Fine Art from the University of Leeds.

Morgan wrote television scripts throughout the 1990s, and broke through with The Deal, a 2003 television drama about Prime Minister Tony Blair’s power dealing. He received his Academy Award-nomination for The Deal's follow-up, The Queen (2006) which showed how the death of Princess Diana impacted Tony Blair and senior members of the Royal Family. 2006 also saw the release of The Last King of Scotland, the screenplay of which Morgan adapted with Jeremy Brock. In 2007 they jointly won a BAFTA Film Award for their work on the film.

Also in 2006, Morgan's first play, Frost / Nixon, was staged at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London. It opened to enthusiastic reviews. In 2009, The Special Relationship, the third film of Morgan's "Blair trilogy" was completed. The film focused on Blair's (again played by Michael Sheen) relationship with U.S president Bill Clinton between 1997 and 2000.

Morgan has recently completed the screenplay for an upcoming biopic about rock musician Freddie Mercury, who was famous for being the lead vocalist and songwriter for the rock band Queen.

Sir David Frost

SIR DAVID FROST has not only won all the major television awards, his professional activities have been so diverse that he has been described as “a one man media conglomerate.” Host and co-creator of That Was The Week That Was, producer of countless television programs, author of 17 books, producer of seven films, publisher, lecturer, impresario and the joint founder of two major network companies in the United Kingdom, he continues to be active as both a newsmaker and newscaster.

His interview of Richard Nixon was one of the most widely watched news interviews in the history of television. Shown in almost every televised nation in the world, it garnered the largest audience ever achieved for a news interview in the U.S.

Frost is the only person to have interviewed eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2010 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and the past seven US presidents in office between 1969 and 2008. He was also the last person to interview Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Outside of the field of world affairs, his roster of interviewees ranges from Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, Noel Coward and Peter Ustinov to Arthur Rubinstein, Woody Allen, Muhammed Ali and of course, the Beatles.

His many major television awards include Emmy Awards for The David Frost Show, the Royal Television Society Silver Medal and the Richard Dimbleby Award in the United Kingdom, and internationally, the Golden Rose of Montreux.

In 1988, Sir David undertook a 14-hour syndicated television series, The Next President With David Frost, featuring hour-long interviews with all the Presidential candidates.

He is married to Lady Carina Fitzalan Howard, a daughter of the 17th Duke of Norfolk, and has three sons. He was also engaged to American actress Diahann Carroll in the early 1970s.

Richard M. Nixon

Reconciliation was the first goal set by President Richard M. Nixon. The Nation was painfully divided, with turbulence in the cities and war overseas. During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation.

Born in California in 1913, Nixon had a brilliant record at Whittier College and Duke University Law School before beginning the practice of law. In 1940, he married Patricia Ryan; they had two daughters, Patricia (Tricia) and Julie. During World War II, Nixon served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific.

On leaving the service, he was elected to Congress from his California district. In 1950, he won a Senate seat. Two years later, General Eisenhower selected Nixon, age 39, to be his running mate.

As Vice President, Nixon took on major duties in the Eisenhower Administration. Nominated for President by acclamation in 1960, he lost by a narrow margin to John F. Kennedy. In 1968, he again won his party's nomination, and went on to defeat Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and third-party candidate George C. Wallace.

His accomplishments while in office included revenue sharing, the end of the draft, new anticrime laws, and a broad environmental program. As he had promised, he appointed Justices of conservative philosophy to the Supreme Court. One of the most dramatic events of his first term occurred in 1969, when American astronauts made the first moon landing. Some of his most acclaimed achievements came in his quest for world stability. During visits in 1972 to Beijing and Moscow, he reduced tensions with China and the U.S.S.R. His summit meetings with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. In January 1973, he announced an accord with North Viet Nam to end American involvement in Indochina. In 1974, his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents, Egypt and Syria.

In his 1972 bid for office, Nixon defeated Democratic candidate George McGovern by one of the widest margins on record. Within a few months, his administration was embattled over the so-called "Watergate" scandal, stemming from a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 campaign. The break-in was traced to officials of the Committee to Re-elect the President. A number of administration officials resigned; some were later convicted of offenses connected with efforts to cover up the affair. Nixon denied any personal involvement, but the courts forced him to yield tape recordings which indicated that he had, in fact, tried to divert the investigation.

As a result of unrelated scandals in Maryland, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in 1973. Nixon nominated, and Congress approved, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford as Vice President. Faced with what seemed almost certain impeachment, Nixon announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign the next day to begin "that process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." By the time of his death on April 22, 1994, he had written numerous books on his experiences.

The Watergate Break-in

The Watergate political scandal in the 1970s involved the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal led to the resignation of the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, on August 9, 1974. It also resulted in the incarceration of several Nixon administration officials.

The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected the payments to the burglars to a slush fund used by the 1972 Committee To Re-elect The President.

As evidence mounted against the president's staff, which included former staff members testifying against them in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape recording system in his offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Recordings from these tapes implicated the president, revealing that he had attempted to cover up the break-in.

Facing near-certain impeachment, Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on August 9, 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, later issued a pardon after his resignation.

The Interviews

After his resignation in 1974, Richard Nixon spent more than two years away from public life. In 1977, he granted David Frost an exclusive series of interviews. Nixon was already publishing his memoirs at the time; Frost was seeking redemption because his talk show had been cancelled.

As Frost had agreed to pay Nixon for the interviews, the American news networks were not interested, and refused to distribute the program, forcing Frost and a group of investors to syndicate the series themselves. Nixon's negotiated fee was $600,000 and a 20 percent share of any profits from the broadcast.

Frost recruited James Reston, Jr. and ABC News producer Bob Zelnick to evaluate the Watergate minutiae prior to the interview. This allowed Frost to take control of the interview. Nixon's resulting admissions would later support the widespread conclusion that Nixon had indeed obstructed justice.

The interviews began on March 23, 1977 and lasted 12 days. They were taped for two hours a day, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, for a total of 28 hours and 45 minutes. Recording took place at a seaside home in Monarch Bay, California, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Harold H. Smith, who were both longtime Nixon supporters.

The interviews were broadcast in the US and some other countries in 1977. They were edited into four programs, each 90 minutes long. The interviews were broadcast in four parts, with a fifth part containing material edited from the earlier parts shown months later.

Barn Players “Frost/Nixon” Dramaturgy © 2011; Ross Harmon.