Stephen MacDonald (5 May 1933 – 12 August 2009) was a British actor, director and dramatist.Stephen MacDonald: actor, director and playwright
/ref> MacDonald was brought up and educated in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, 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 Heroes'', which concerns the relationship between

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

poets

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World ...

and

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen Military Cross, MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of Trench warfare, trenches and Chemi ...

, and has been produced internationally including an

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

run with Edward Herrmann and a run at the National Theatre,

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, 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 Theatre in 1972, where as artistic director he mounted 11 new plays by Scottish authors, including

Ian Brown Ian George Brown (born 20 February 1963) is an English musician. He was the lead singer and the only continuous member of the alternative rock band the Stone Roses from their formation in 1983. Following the band's initial split in 1996, he be ...

, Stewart Conn, Tom Gallacher, John McGrath and Hector MacMillan. After this post he became artistic director of the

Royal Lyceum Theatre The 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 a ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

. As he had at Dundee, he promoted drama that looked afresh at historical events.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonald, Stephen 1933 births 2009 deaths English male stage actors English theatre directors Male actors from Birmingham, West Midlands People associated with Dundee