Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director.

Life and career

Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, England. the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Oldfield). He was educated at

Felsted School (Keep your Faith) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmaster , head = Chris Townsend , r_head_l ...

, in Essex, England and

Riverdale Country School Riverdale Country School is a co-educational, independent, college-preparatory day school in New York City serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. It is located on two campuses covering more than in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Ne ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, followed by

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. His directing career began as Associate Director of the

Traverse Theatre The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963 by John Calder, John Malcolm, Jim Haynes and Richard Demarco. The Traverse Theatre company commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary pla ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, in 1966. He became artistic director there from 1968 to 1970. He was Director of the Traverse Theatre Workshop Company from 1970 to 1974. Stafford-Clark then co-founded the

Joint Stock Theatre Company The Joint Stock Theatre Company was founded in London 1974 by David Hare, Max Stafford-Clark Paul Kember and David Aukin. The director William Gaskill was also part of the company. It was primarily a company which presented new plays. Joint Stock ...

in 1974. Joint Stock worked with writers using company research to inspire workshops. From these workshops, writers such as David Hare, Howard Brenton and Caryl Churchill would garner material to inspire a writing phase before rehearsals began. This methodology is sometimes referred to as The Joint Stock Method. Productions during this period included Hare's ''Fanshen'' (1975), Brenton's ''

Epsom Downs Epsom Downs is an area of chalk upland near Epsom, Surrey; in the North Downs. Part of the area is taken up by the racecourse, the gallops are part of the land purchased by Stanly Wootton in 1925 and are open to users such as ramblers, model ...

'' and Churchill's '' Cloud Nine'' (1979) which Stafford-Clark directed, as well as ''The Speakers'', a promenade production. From 1979 to 1993, Stafford-Clark was Artistic Director of the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, Englan ...

. He remains to date the Court's longest serving artistic director. He helped nurture emerging playwrights including

Andrea Dunbar Andrea Dunbar (22 May 1961 – 20 December 1990) was an English playwright. She wrote ''The Arbor'' (1980) and ''Rita, Sue and Bob Too'' (1982), an autobiographical drama about the sexual adventures of teenage girls living in a run-down part of ...

Hanif Kureishi Hanif Kureishi (born 5 December 1954) is a British playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker and novelist of South Asian and English descent. In 2008, ''The Times'' included Kureishi in its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Early l ...

, Sarah Daniels and

Jim Cartwright Jim Cartwright (born 27 June 1958) is an English dramatist, born in Farnworth, Lancashire. Cartwright's first play, ''Road'', won a number of awards before being adapted for TV and broadcast by the BBC. His work has been translated into more ...

. His regular collaborators on his productions included the singer

Ian Dury Ian Robins Dury (12 May 1942 27 March 2000) was a British singer, songwriter and actor who rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and new wave era of rock music. He was the lead singer and lyricist of Ian Dury and the Blockheads an ...

. During this time the theatre's productions included ''Victory'' by

Howard Barker Howard Barker (born 28 June 1946) is a British playwright, screenwriter and writer of radio drama, painter, poet, and essayist writing predominantly on playwriting and the theatre. The author of an extensive body of dramatic works since the 197 ...

, ''The Arbor'' by

, ''Insignificance'' by Terry Johnson, ''

Our Country's Good ''Our Country's Good'' is a 1988 play written by British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel ''The Playmaker''. The story concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales, ...

'' by

Timberlake Wertenbaker Timberlake Wertenbaker is a British-based playwright, screenplay writer, and translator who has written plays for the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and others. She has been described in ''The Washington Post'' as "the doyenne of po ...

, ''

Road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

'' by

and ''Rat in the Skull'' by Ron Hutchinson. Perhaps the most important commission and production of this era was ''

Top Girls ''Top Girls'' is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It centres around Marlene, a career-driven woman who is heavily invested in women's success in business. The play examines the roles available to women in old society, and what it means or takes fo ...

'' by Caryl Churchill (1982). ''

'' is based on Australian author

Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his non-fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, wh ...

's book ''The Playmaker'' in which convicts deported from Britain to the penal colony perform George Farquhar's ''

The Recruiting Officer ''The Recruiting Officer'' is a 1706 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar, which follows the social and sexual exploits of two officers, the womanising Plume and the cowardly Brazen, in the town of Shrewsbury (the town where Farquhar himse ...

''. Stafford-Clark wrote about his experiences of staging the plays in repertoire in his book ''Letters to George''. He has staged productions for Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival. In 1993, he founded the

Out of Joint Out of Joint is a British and international touring theatre company based in London. It specialises in the commissioning and production of new writing, interspersed with occasional revivals and classic productions. It was founded in 1993 by direct ...

touring company with producer

Sonia Friedman Sonia Anne Primrose Friedman (born Freedman; born April 1965) is a British West End and Broadway theatre producer. On 27 January 2017, Friedman was named Producer of the Year for the third year running at The Stage Awards, becoming the first ...

, one of her first ventures after leaving the National Theatre. He was Artistic Director until 2017 when he was succeeded by Kate Wasserberg. He left the company after complaints were made about a tendency to make lewd remarks to women. The emergence of this issue in October 2017 led to further accusations of inappropriate sexual comments, going back several decades. The actress

Tracy-Ann Oberman Tracy-Ann Oberman (born Tracy Anne Oberman; 25 August 1966) is an English actress, playwright and narrator. She is widely known for roles including Chrissie Watts in the BBC soap opera '' EastEnders'' (2004–2005) and Valerie Lewis or "Auntie ...

was among those who contacted ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' to relate their experience, taking the number of women who had made complaints about Stafford-Clark to five. Academic credits include an honorary doctorate from

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic (United Kingdom), Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and High ...

and Professorships at the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

and the

University of Hertfordshire The University of Hertfordshire (UH) is a public university in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The university is based largely in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its antecedent institution, Hatfield Technical College, was founded in 1948 and was ident ...

. By May 2021, the company had changed its registered address, professional and legal names. It became known as Stockroom, presumably as a reference to Stafford-Clark's work in co-founding and leading his first company (Joint Stock). The name Out of Joint had cleverly used a famous three word phrase in Shakespeare's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'' to simultaneously describe the evolutionary legacy from Stafford-Clark's first company.

Personal life

Stafford-Clark and

Carole Hayman Carole Hayman is an English writer, broadcaster, actor and director. She was born in Kent, and attended Leeds University and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She has been an actress and theatre director and was an associate director at the Roy ...

married in 1971; they later divorced. His second wife was Ann Pennington (m. 1981). During a six-month period in 2006 and 2007, Stafford-Clark suffered three

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

s, which left him physically disabled and impaired his eyesight. Stafford-Clark's experience, and the condition of the

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

, inspired Irish playwright

Stella Feehily Stella Anne Feehily (born 1969, London) is an Irish playwright and actor. Her plays include ''Game'' (2003), which was produced by Fishamble Theatre company, Dublin, and was published in an anthology of first plays by New Island. She is the au ...

(the couple married in 2010) to write the play ''This May Hurt a Bit'', first performed in 2014. He has one daughter, Kitty Stafford-Clark, from his second marriage.

Sexual harassment allegations

In July 2017, an employee of Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint theatre company made a formal complaint about his behaviour. An investigation followed and he was asked to leave the company. Stafford-Clark stepped down in September 2017. In the weeks that followed, three more women stated that he had "made lewd comments to them."

Legacy

In 1999 the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

acquired Stafford-Clark's papers consisting of production diaries and rehearsal scripts covering his time with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, and Out of Joint theatre company. The Library also acquired supplementary production diaries and rehearsal scripts in 2005.Max Stafford-Clark Papers Supplement
archives and manuscripts catalogue, the British Library. Retrieved 21 May 2020

Productions since 2000

* 2000 ''A State Affair'' by

Robin Soans Robin Soans (born 20 June 1946) is a British actor, and a playwright specialising in verbatim and documentary plays. These plays include ''Across the Divide'' (2007); ''A State Affair'' (2000) which looked at life on a Bradford estate, produced ...

(Out of Joint/Soho Theatre) * 2000 ''Rita, Sue and Bob Too'' by

(Out of Joint/

Soho Theatre The Soho Theatre is a theatre and registered charity in the Soho district of the City of Westminster, in London, England. It produces and presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret, across three performance spaces. The the ...

) * 2001 ''Feelgood'' by

Alistair Beaton Alistair Beaton (born 1947) is a playwright and satirist, journalist, radio presenter, novelist and television writer. At one point in his career he was also a speechwriter for Gordon Brown. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Beaton was educated at the ...

(Out of Joint,

Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. Roxana Silbert has been the artistic director since ...

and the

Garrick Theatre The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located in Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster, named after the stage actor David Garrick. It opened in 1889 with ''The Profligate'', a play by Arthur Wing Pinero, and another Pinero play ...

) * 2001 ''Sliding with Suzanne'' by

Judy Upton Judy Upton (born 1967) is a British playwright. Life She collaborated with Lisa Goldman at The Red Room Theatre Company. She also wrote radio plays for the BBC. ''Ashes and Sand'' has been adapted into film. Awards *1994 George Devine Award, f ...

(Out of Joint/The Royal Court) * 2002 ''Hinterland'' by

Sebastian Barry Sebastian Barry (born 5 July 1955) is an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. He was named Laureate for Irish Fiction, 2019–2021. He is noted for his lyrical literary writing style and is considered one of Ireland's finest writers. Barry's l ...

(Out of Joint/The National Theatre) * 2002 ''A Laughing Matter'' by

April De Angelis April De Angelis (born April 1960) is an English dramatist of part Sicilian descent. She is a graduate of Sussex University who trained at East 15 Acting School. De Angelis began her career in the 1980s as an actress with the Monstrous Regimen ...

(Out of Joint/The National Theatre) * 2002 ''

She Stoops to Conquer ''She Stoops to Conquer'' is a comedy by Oliver Goldsmith, first performed in London in 1773. The play is a favourite for study by English literature and theatre classes in the English-speaking world. It is one of the few plays from the 18t ...

'' by

Oliver Goldsmith Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 – 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, dramatist and poet, who is best known for his novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' (1766), his pastoral poem ''The Deserted Village'' (1770), and his pl ...

(Out of Joint/The National Theatre) * 2003 ''The Breath of Life'' by David Hare (

Sydney Theatre Company Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in The Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre (formerly Sydney Thea ...

) * 2003 ''Duck'' by

(Out of Joint/Royal Court) * 2003 ''The Permanent Way'' by David Hare (Out of Joint/ The National Theatre) * 2004 ''

Macbeth ''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...

'' by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

(Out of Joint) * 2005 ''Talking to Terrorists'' by

(Out of Joint/Royal Court) * 2006 ''O Go My Man'' by Stella Feehily * 2006 ''The Overwhelming'' by JT Rogers (Out of Joint/ The National Theatre) * 2007 ''King of Hearts'' by

(Out of Joint,

) * 2008 ''The Convicts Opera'' - Stephen Jeffreys - Based On The Beggars Opera * 2009 ''Dreams of Violence'' by

- (Out of Joint/Soho Theatre) * 2009 ''Mixed Up North'' by

- (Out of Joint/Octagon Theatre Bolton) * 2010 ''Andersen's English'' by

(Out of Joint/Hampstead Theatre * 2010 ''The Big Fellah'' by

Richard Bean Richard Anthony Bean (born 11 June 1956) is an English playwright. Early years Born in East Hull, Bean was educated at Hull Grammar School, and then studied social psychology at Loughborough University, graduating with a 2:1 BSc Hons. He then ...

(Out of Joint/Lyric Hammersmith) * 2011 ''A Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson'' adapted by Russell Barr, Ian Redford & Max Stafford-Clark from

James Boswell James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 (New Style, N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of his friend and older contemporary the Englis ...

. * 2011 ''Bang Bang Bang'' by

- (Out of Joint/Royal Court Theatre/ Octagon Theatre Bolton/ Salisbury Playhouse/ Leicester Curve) * 2011 ''Top Girls'' by Caryl Churchill - (Out of Joint, Chichester Festival Theatre) * 2012 ''

'' by

- (Out of Joint) * 2014 ''This May Hurt A Bit'' by

* 2014 ''Pitcairn'' by

* 2015 ''Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage'' by

Bibliography

* Ritchie, R. (1987), ''The Joint Stock Book'', London: Methuen * Stafford-Clark, M. (1997), ''Letters to George: The Account of a Rehearsal'', London: Nick Hern Books * Stafford-Clark, M. and Roberts, P. (2007), ''Taking Stock: The Theatre of Max Stafford-Clark'', London: Nick Hern Books * Stafford-Clark, M. with McKeown, M. (2010), ''Our Country's Good: Page to Stage'', London: Nick Hern Books * Stafford-Clark, M. (2014), ''Journal of the Plague Year'', London: Nick Hern Books

References

External links

*
Max Stafford-Clark Material
at the British Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Stafford-Clark, Max 1941 births Living people Academics of the University of Hertfordshire Academics of the University of Warwick English theatre directors People educated at Felsted School Riverdale Country School alumni