Peter Land

Peter Land, born Peter Oliver White on 9 July 1953 in Taihape, New Zealand, is an actor and singer whose career has encompassed classical theatre, West End musicals, and Broadway. He is the third child of Dr. Allan Neil White, who received appointment as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to medicine and the community in the 2007 New Year Honours, and Molly Louise Copeland, whose maiden name Land adopted as his stage surname. He attended Palmerston North Boys' High School before studying at Victoria University of Wellington's Drama Department and subsequently at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School, where he earned a Diploma in Acting in 1975. He relocated to England in October 1977.

Land's West End career began with the role of Freddy in My Fair Lady at the Adelphi Theatre from 1979 to 1980. He then undertook seasons with two of Britain's most prominent classical companies: the Royal National Theatre, where he appeared in Life of Galileo alongside Sir Michael Gambon, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his credits included The Winter's Tale with Patrick Stewart, Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1982, and All's Well That Ends Well with Dame Peggy Ashcroft in 1982. That RSC production of All's Well That Ends Well transferred to Broadway in 1983, marking Land's appearance on the Broadway stage.

His musical theatre work has included Cliff in Cabaret, Andre in The Phantom of the Opera, Snodgrass in Pickwick, and Savory in One Touch of Venus. In 2007 he took on the role of Captain Hook in a new stage adaptation of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, in which he performed the first stage presentation of Leonard Bernstein's "Captain Hook's Soliloquy," a piece composed in 1950 that had previously received its world premiere in concert by baritone Lawrence Tibbett. In 2013 Land appeared in Jerry Herman's Dear World at the Charing Cross Theatre in the West End, a production starring Betty Buckley that was directed and choreographed by Gillian Lynne.

Land's television work includes an appearance in the British series Secret Army as Erich Devouglaar, a Flemish youth bound for the Eastern Front, and a 1985 CBS role as Mr. Brent, a dream broker, in the first-season Twilight Zone episode titled Wish Bank. In June 2008 he appeared as Beralde, brother to the character played by René Auberjonois, in Molière's The Imaginary Invalid at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., directed by Keith Baxter.

At the King's Head Theatre in London, Land debuted as The Bonze in OperaUpClose's production of Puccini's Madam Butterfly, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher, during the 2010–11 season. He also performed his one-man cabaret show Now or Never at the same venue in 2011, dedicating the production to the victims of that year's Canterbury earthquake in New Zealand. An updated version of the show ran at the York Theatre Off-Broadway in February 2012. In 2015 Land appeared in the Off-Broadway production of Ruthless! in the role of Sylvia St. Croix. Land married director and choreographer Gillian Lynne in 1980.