Date: July 5th
Location: Actors' Guild Hub at Spotlight, 7 Leicester Place, London, WC2H 7RJ
Time: 18.00 - 21.00

One of the UK's most respected directors, Stephen Unwin, leads a workshop on acting Noel Coward - working with members on the substance beneath the style - with reference to HAY FEVER, THE VORTEX and THIS HAPPY BREED.

Stephen's production of The Vortex recently completed a successful run at The Rose Theatre:

"I have never seen The Vortex more persuasively performed than this, and don’t expect to do so again"
%u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605 The Telegraph
%u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605 The Independent
%u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605 Daily Express
%u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605 Mail on Sunday
%u2605 %u2605 %u2605 %u2605 Time Out

Please have a look at the three plays before the workshop and bring in your copies.

Stephen Unwin

Stephen Unwin is Artistic Director the Rose Theatre Kingston, where he has directed many home-grown productions, including: The Winslow Boy, Miss Julie, Hay Fever, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Lady from the Sea and The Second Mrs Tanqueray.

Stephen was born in Budapest in 1959. He read English at Cambridge University, where he directed many student productions, including an award-winning production of Measure for Measure that transferred to the Almeida, where he was awarded an Arts Council Trainee Director's Bursary.

For much of the 1980s, Stephen was Associate Director at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. All his productions were of new plays from Scotland, England and abroad. Six transferred to London theatres: Michel Tremblay's Sandra/Manon (Donmar); Mario Vargas Llosa's Kathie and the Hippopotamus and Peter Arnott's White Rose (Almeida); and two plays by Manfred Karge: Man to Man and The Conquest of the South Pole (Royal Court). In the early 1990s, Stephen was Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio, where his work included: Marivaux' The Lottery of Love; Goethe's Torquato Tasso; A Yorkshire Tragedy; the British premiere of Peter Handke's The Long Way Round; and a devised show for the under-fives The Magic Carpet for the NT Education Department.

In 1993, Stephen founded English Touring Theatre. His first production was Hamlet, which transferred to the Donmar. Subsequent productions include A Doll's House; The Beaux' Stratagem; As You Like It; The School for Wives; Macbeth (Lyric Hammersmith); Hedda Gabler (Donmar); Henry IV Parts One and Two (Old Vic); The Seagull (Donmar); Marty Cruickshank's A Difficult Age; The Taming of the Shrew; Don Juan; The Master Builder; The Cherry Orchard; Love's Labour's Lost; Ghosts; King Lear (Old Vic); John Gabriel Borkman; Romeo and Juliet; Twelfth Night; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead; Hamlet (New Ambassador's); The Old Country (Trafalgar); Mother Courage and her Children; Someone Else's Shoes (Soho) and The Changeling. Stephen stepped down from ETT in 2008 after fifteen years at the helm.

Stephen has also directed three plays for The Peter Hall Company; Born in the Gardens, Home and This Happy Breed and directed many leading actors: Tilda Swinton, Simon Russell Beale, Ken Stott, Alan Cumming, Timothy West, Anita Dobson, Ed Stoppard, Diana Quick, Samuel West, Stephanie Cole and many others.