Steven’s professional theatre work began with NXT (New Cross Theatre), which he co-founded in 1985. As an actor with the company, Steven toured throughout Europe and North America, playing leading roles in the British premieres of works by David Mamet, Heiner Muller, Enzo Cormann and David Bown; and in classics by Brian Friel, Aphra Behn and William Shakespeare. For the company he directed the premieres of his own adaptation of Blake Morrison’s The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper; The Erotica Project (in association with Shady Dolls Theatre Company); and a unique simultaneous live and on-line performance event of his own play The Spoils (in association with Rave Media), which went on to be staged at the Arcola Theatre’s Grimeborn Festival, London.
His other plays include Homestead and Deadstock (Shady Dolls); a light gathering of dust (NXT, Edinburgh Festival); Kolonists (Bridge Lane, London & the Pelican Studio, New York); The Happiness Compartment (Soho Rep, New York and Greenwich Playhouse, London); The Swing Left (Unlimited Theatre, North Wall, Oxford and Leeds); and Glockenspiel (Tristan Bates Theatre, London). He has provided English versions of the Estonian play Cold Come, Cranes Gone (Bridge Lane, London and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh) and Leoncavallo’s La Bohéme for the ENO (Coliseum).
Music Theatre
Steven has collaborated with composer Paul Englishby on a range of projects for stage and screen. Musical Theatre productions include amnesia and other means of escape (Young Vic Studio) and Visitation (Oval House). Steven provided lyrics for Paul’s BBC ‘Sound on Films’ Pictures On A Piano and The Score; the music-documentary Hidden Voices (BBC); and an oratorio, The Flood, recorded by the Tallis Chamber Choir. Paul composed music for Steven’s plays The Process, a light gathering of dust and the piano and song cycle for The Spoils.
Rose Bruford College
As Programme Director for the American Theatre Arts (BA Hons) programme at Rose Bruford College, Steven has directed or produced premieres of the work of Jennifer Haley, Caridad Svich, Lynn Nottage and Christopher Shinn. He has also forged a reputation for his innovative multi-media productions of the plays of Arthur Miller, J B Priestley, Caryl Churchill and David Greig.
