Stephen Unwin

Who is Stephen Unwin?

Stephen Unwin is an English theatre director. Stephen read English at the University of Cambridge, 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, he has since directed over 50 professional productions and 12 operas. For much of the 1980s, he was Associate Director at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, and several of his productions transferred to London theatres. He worked with a wide range of leading actors, including Simon Rusell Beale, Tilda Swinton, Ken Stott, and dozens of others. In the early 1990s, he became Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio.

He launched the English Touring Theatre in June 1993, where he directed twenty productions, many of which were seen at the Old Vic, the Donmar, the Lyric Hammersmith and others. He stepped down from ETT in 2008 after fifteen years at the helm. He became the second Artistic Director of the Rose Theatre, Kingston. He has also directed in Europe and in British repertory theatre.

He was joint winner of the 2003 Sam Wanamaker Award with Barrie Rutter, and in autumn 2003 was Judith E Wilson Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University.