Stephen MacDonald was a British actor, director and dramatist.
MacDonald was brought up and educated in
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, where he trained as an actor, but subsequently worked extensively in Scotland as a theatre director.
As a writer, MacDonald is best known for his 1983 play,
Not About HeroesNot About Heroes is a drama by Stephen MacDonald about the real-life relationship between the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1982....
, which concerns the relationship between
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
poets
Siegfried SassoonSiegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE MC was an English poet, author and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's...
and
Wilfred OwenWilfred Edward Salter Owen MC was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War...
, and has been produced internationally including an Off-Broadway run with
Edward HerrmannEdward Kirk Herrmann is a U.S. television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D...
and a run at the
National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
,
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where MacDonald played Sassoon.
In 1971 he began his directorial career, at Leicester Phoenix Theatre. He was instrumental in turning around the fortunes of the
Dundee Repertory TheatreDundee Repertory Theatre or Dundee Rep is a theatre and arts company in the city of Dundee, Scotland. It operates as both a producing house - staging at least six of its own productions each year, and a receiving house - hosting work from visiting companies throughout Scotland and the United...
in 1972, where as artistic director he mounted 11 new plays by Scottish authors, including Ian Brown,
Stewart ConnStewart Conn is a Scottish poet and playwright, born in Hillhead, Glasgow . His father was a minister Kelvinside Church but the family moved to Kilmarnock, Ayrshire in 1941 when he was five. During the 60s and 70s he worked for the BBC at their offices off Queen Margaret Drive and moved to...
,
Tom GallacherTom Gallacher is a Scottish playwright who hails from Alexandria in Dunbartonshire.He was involved with the Dumbarton People's Theatre.-Plays for the stage:...
, John McGrath and Hector MacMillan.
After this post he became artistic director of the
Royal Lyceum TheatreThe Royal Lyceum Theatre is a 658 seat theatre in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, named after the Theatre Royal Lyceum and English Opera House, the residence at the time of legendary Shakespearean actor Henry Irving. It was built in 1883 by architect C. J. Phipps at a cost of UK£17,000 on behalf...
in
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
.