Date: April 9th
Location: Spotlight, 3rd Floor, 16 Garrick Street, London WC2E 9BA
Time: 6.30pm-9.30pm

Join acclaimed director Stephen Unwin for an in-depth workshop on Man to Man, the extraordinary one-woman play he is currently directing with Tilda Swinton.

This session offers a rare opportunity to explore the artistic and technical demands of creating powerful solo theatre. Drawing on his current collaboration with Swinton, Unwin will unpack the challenges and freedoms of directing a single performer through a vast emotional and narrative landscape.

Man to Man is a work of transformation, identity, endurance, and testimony. In this workshop, participants will examine the one-woman play and:

• The craft of sustaining dramatic tension with a single actor on stage

• Building character multiplicity within a solo performance

• Physical and vocal transformation as storytelling tools

• The director–actor relationship in highly intimate rehearsal processes

• Structuring rhythm, space, and silence in minimalist staging

Through discussion, practical exploration, and rehearsal insights from the current production process, Unwin will illuminate how a solo performer can embody an entire world.

This workshop is ideal for actors interested in solo performance, directors exploring intimate staging, and theatre-makers seeking deeper understanding of narrative embodiment and theatrical transformation.

A rare glimpse into the making of a one-woman production at the highest level of craft. This session will work with excerpts from the one-woman play.

https://royalcourttheatre.com/events/man-to-man/

Bio:

Stephen's directing credits include productions for the Theatre Royal Bath, the Royal Court, the Arcola, Leicester, Liverpool and theatres in Germany, Austria and Belgium.

From 2008 - 2014 Stephen was Artistic Director of the Rose Theatre in Kingston. His productions there included Hay Fever with Celia Imrie, The Importance of Being Earnest with Jane Asher, The Lady from the Sea with Joely Richardson, The Vortex with Kerry Fox and Day in the Death of Joe Egg with Ralf Little.

Stephen has written 10 books on theatre, drama and related subjects for Faber and Faber, Methuen, Nick Hern Books and Oberon, as well as numerous articles for newspapers and journals. He has also written four plays and numerous translations.

Stephen founded English Touring Theatre, for whom he directed more than 30 productions of classical and new plays, including award-winning productions of Hamlet with Alan Cumming, Hedda Gabler with Alexandra Gilbreath, Henry IV Parts One and Two with Timothy and Samuel West, King Lear with Timothy West and Ghosts with Diana Quick and Daniel Evans.  These transferred to the Donmar and Old Vic Theatres.  He produced two plays by Jonathan Harvey and Peter Gill’s award-winning The York Realist as well as Peter Hall’s production of Uncle Vanya.

He spent much of his early career at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh where he directed a mixture of Scottish and European plays with a range of remarkable actors, including Tilda Swinton, Simon Russell Beale, Alan Cumming, Karin Cartlidge and Ken Stott.  Many of these productions were seen in London theatres, including the Royal Court, the Donmar and the Almeida.   He was also Resident Director at the NT Studio and directed several Studio Nights at the Cottesloe as well as The Magic Carpet, the first play for the under fives at the NT. 

Stephen has also directed 15 operas, at the Almeida Music Festival, Opera 80, Garsington, Buxton, ENO and the Royal Opera House.