Stephen Wood

We're deeply saddened to announce the death of our former Executive Director, Stephen Wood.

Stephen first joined the theatre - then known as the Library Theatre - as press officer in 1976, just months before its move to Westwood where it became known as the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round. 

He left in 1982 to join the National Theatre press office, later becoming Head of Press, and moving back to Scarborough in 1996 to become Chief Executive of the theatre in its permanent home at the town’s former Odeon cinema where it took the new title of the Stephen Joseph Theatre. He retired in 2015.

Helen Boaden, chair of Scarborough Theatre Trust, says:

"Stephen was an irrepressible force of nature who loved cricket, newspapers and the SJT. He championed our theatre through thick and thin and we send our sincere condolences to his family.”

The SJT’s Director Emeritus, Alan Ayckbourn, says:

“Stephen had long been associated with the company throughout its various incarnations ever since its Library Theatre days.

Throughout his association with it, initially as press officer and finally as executive director, he played a huge part in its growth and development. He is someone I always considered a guardian of the company’s founding principles, innovation, originality and excitement, pursued through the highest achievable artistic standards.”

The former Artistic Director of the NT, Richard Eyre, says:

"John Goodwin [then the NT's Head of Press] recruited Stephen for his department and I met him for the first time when I directed Guys and Dolls in 1982. The start of my time as Director of the NT in 1988 coincided with Stephen's promotion to Head of Press. He was an inspired appointment - invariably tactful, but not a tactician, thoughtful, loved, generous and above all, truthful. Stephen's team was always bright, talented and witty. The remarkable publicist Janine Shalom, who died barely two months ago, was one of them. They were liked and trusted by critics and journalists as much as by actors and directors."

Image: Tony Bartholomew