Stephen Lowe (playwright)
This article's lead section may be too long. (November 2021) |
Stephen Lowe | |
---|---|
Born | December 1947 (age 76) |
Occupation(s) | Playwright Director |
Stephen Lowe (born December 1947) is an English playwright and director.
Lowe's plays have dealt with subjects ranging from the takeover of Tibet by the
He has had plays produced by the
Many of his plays were first produced in his home-town at Nottingham Playhouse, at Lakeside Arts Centre or by Lowe’s own company, Meeting Ground Theatre Company. Lowe moved back to Nottingham in 1985 to start Meeting Ground, with a group including his wife Tanya Myers. In February 2017, a revival of Touched was staged at Nottingham Playhouse, starring Vicky McClure. This new production celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the original production at the same theatre.[2]
Lowe has worked with many leading directors including Bill Alexander, Alan Ayckbourn, Annie Castledine, Jonathan Chadwick, Anthony Clark, Stephen Daldry, Alan Dossor, Richard Eyre, Bill Gaskill, David Leveaux, and Danny Boyle, who early in his career was assistant director on Lowe’s play Tibetan Inroads. His theatre and television work has featured actors such as Bruce Alexander, Warren Clarke, George Costigan, Kenneth Cranham, Sharon Duce, Emma Fielding, Brian Glover, Nigel Hawthorne, Bill Paterson, Neil Pearson, Kathryn Pogson, Linus Roache, Colin Tarrant, Marjorie Yates, Harriet Walter and Rachel Weisz.
Lowe was writer in residence at Riverside Studios from 1982 to 1984, and he has led numerous theatre and writing workshops, including at the
Lowe's play
Early life
Lowe was born Stephen James Wright in
After university, Lowe worked in various jobs while writing, including part-time lecturer, clerk, hospital receptionist, newspaper distributor, advertising manager, housepainter, barman and civil servant. While working as a part-time shepherd in the Yorkshire Dales, he was commissioned by Alan Ayckbourn to write a comedy double-bill, Comic Pictures, and joined his Scarborough Theatre in the Round company as an actor and writer. Ayckbourn produced Comic Pictures in 1976.
Lowe took his mother's maiden name as a professional identity in 1976, when he joined Ayckbourn's company.[5]
Peace plays
In the 1980s, Lowe edited two anthologies of peace plays for Methuen. The first volume was of plays by British playwrights, including Deborah Levy, Adrian Mitchell, and Lowe himself (Keeping Body and Soul Together). It was published in 1985 during a period of increased tension towards the end of the Cold War, and Lowe's introduction quoted from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Nobel acceptance speech, "we, the inventors of tales, who will believe anything, feel entitled to believe that it is not yet too late to engage in the creation of a utopia of a very different kind."[6] The second volume, published in 1990, came out of the new era of glasnost and a thaw in relations between the two superpowers. For this volume Lowe selected plays by two American playwrights, Arthur Kopit and Richard Stayton; and by two Russian playwrights, Fyodor Burlatsky, a former adviser to Khrushchev and Gorbachev, and Mikhail Bulgakov.
Works
Plays
- Cards, Act Inn Theatre, London (1973)
- Comic Pictures (Stars and Cards), Scarborough Theatre-in-the-Round (1976)
- Shooting Fishing and Riding, Scarborough Theatre-in-the-Round (1977)
- Touched, Nottingham Playhouse (1977); Royal Court (1981)
- Sally Ann Hallelujah Band, Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Roundabout (1978)
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Joint Stock (1978)
- Glasshouses, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs (1981) ; (later retitled:) Moving Pictures, Leeds Playhouse
- Tibetan Inroads, Royal Court (1981)
- The Trial of Frankenstein, Plymouth Theatre Royal (1982)
- Strive, Sheffield Crucible Studio (1983)
- Seachange, Riverside Studios (1984)
- Keeping Body and Soul Together, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs (1984)
- The Storm (adaptation, from Ostrovsky), RSC Barbican The Pit (1985)
- Desire, Meeting Ground Theatre national tour (1986)
- Demon Lovers, Meeting Ground Theatre national tour (1987)
- Schiller), Sheffield Crucible (1987)
- Divine Gossip, RSC Barbican The Pit (1988)
- Paradise, Nottingham Playhouse (1990)
- The Alchemical Wedding, Salisbury Playhouse (1998)
- Revelations, Hampstead Theatre (2003)
- It's Not Personal, Nottingham Playhouse (2004)
- Old Big 'Ead in The Spirit of the Man, Nottingham Playhouse and national tour (2005-6)
- The Fox and the Little Vixen, Tangere Arts tour (2005)
- The Devil's League, in rehearsal at Derby Playhouse when theatre went into receivership; not yet produced (2008)
- Smile, Lakeside Arts Nottingham (2008)
- Glamour, Nottingham Playhouse (2009)
- Empty Bed Blues, Lakeside Arts Nottingham (2009)
- Seance on a Sunday Afternoon, Lakeside Arts Nottingham (2011)
- Just a Gigolo, Edinburgh Festival and Lakeside Arts Nottingham (2012)
- Altitude Sickness, rehearsed reading, Lakeside Arts Nottingham (2016)[7]
Screenplays
- Cries From A Watchtower, BBC TV Play for Today (1979) Producer Richard Eyre. - A small-time watchmaker is hit by the new silicon chip technology.
- Fred Karno's Bloody Circus, rehearsed reading by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Warehouse Theatre (1979); part of Plays that Television Would Not Do series.[8]
- Shades, BBC 2 60 minutes as part of PLAYS FOR TOMORROW series (1981). - The youth of 2001 re-connect with 80's Peace Protestors. Starring Neil Pearson.
- Unstable Elements, Film NewsReel/ Channel 4. (1983)
- Kisses on the Bottom, BBC 2 (1984). - A comedy in which the characters of Donald McGill sea-side postcards come alive (adapted from Lowe's play Cards).
- Tell Tale Hearts, Three part thriller BBC Scotland (1990) Starring Emma Fielding, Bill Patterson. Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan. - Investigations of a serial child murderer expose hidden fears in all involved.
- Ice Dance, BBC 1 (1990). Director Alan Dossor. Starring Warren Clarke. Producer Mike Wearing. - Two young Nottingham kids try to emulate Torvill and Dean.
- Flea Bites, BBC 1 (1992). Director Alan Dossor. starring Nigel Hawthorne. Producer Mike Wearing. - A Survivor of the camps teaches a young boy the mystery of a flea-circus.
- Scarlet & Black, BBC classical Four hour adaptation (1993). Director Ben Bolt. Starring Ewan McGregor and Rachel Weisz. Producer Mike Wearing. - Stendhal's masterpiece of young love & passion
- Greenstone, ABC/ NZ TV. Eight-hour historical drama with Communicado, the New Zealand producers of Once Were Warriors. (1999). - The 'adventure' story of the first white settlers and the subsequent colonisation of the land.
Directing
- Shooting Fishing and Riding, Scarborough Theatre-in-the-Round (1977)
- Strive, Meeting Ground Theatre national tour (1985)
- Desire, Meeting Ground Theatre national tour (1986)
- Demon Lovers, Meeting Ground Theatre national tour (1987)
- Inside Out of Mind by Tanya Myers, Meeting Ground Theatre workshop presentation for Nottingham Institute of Mental Health (2011) [9]
Sources
- Faith, hope, and human decency, interview with Lowe by John Cunningham; The Guardian, 19 Jan 1981; p9.
- Lowe, Stephen, Who's Who 2011, A & C Black, 2011; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2010 ; online edn, Oct 2010.
- Moving Pictures, Four Plays by Stephen Lowe. London, Methuen, 1985.
- Old Big 'Ead in The Spirit of the Man, by Stephen Lowe. London, Methuen, 2005.
- Work CV, Stephen Lowe website
- Lowe, Stephen. Entry by Dan Rebellato, in Companion to 20th Century Theatre, edited by Colin Chambers. Continuum International, 2002; p 457.
- www.insideoutofmind.co.uk[permanent dead link]
- New play focuses on role of carers, article from Nottingham Evening Post website, 27 Jul 2011.
- Donohue, Walter (edited), The Warehouse: A Writer's Theatre. Theatre Papers no. 8, Dartington College of Arts, 1980.
References
- ^ "TOWNSEND THEATRE PRODUCTIONS ⎯ HOME". www.townsendproductions.org.uk. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ^ Ashworth, Pat. "Touched review at Nottingham Playhouse". The Stage. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ^ Lakeside Arts news web page Archived 11 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "NET Citadis to be named Stephen Lowe". British Trams Online News. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ^ Moving Pictures, Four Plays by Stephen Lowe. London, Methuen, 1985.
- ^ Introduction to Peace Plays volume 1, edited by Stephen Lowe; Methuen, London, 1985; p vii
- ^ "Nottingham Lakeside Arts". Nottingham Lakeside Arts. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ^ Donohue, 1980; pp 22, 34-35.
- ^ http://www.insideoutofmind.co.uk [dead link]