Stephen Drover is Directing the Macbeth He's Been Thinking About for Twenty Years

About this episode

Stephen Drover discusses his long-awaited direction of Macbeth, exploring themes of collaboration, cultural interpretation, and personal growth through theatre.

Read transcript About this episode: Stephen Drover has directed Macbeth before; twenty years ago, the day after it closed, he wanted to do it again. Now, as both adapter and director for Bard on the Beach in Vancouver, he's finally getting that chance. In this rich conversation, Stephen talks about approaching Shakespeare not as a sacred text to be served but as a living collaboration, asking not what the words inherently mean but what meaning is being created in this specific theatre, for this specific audience, right now. The conversation covers the challenge of stripping away cultural baggage around the witches, to building a post-environmental dystopia as the world of the play, to why Stephen leans into the brutal, blood-soaked reality of the play rather than sanitizing it for comfortable consumption. He also reflects on how becoming a parent has changed the way he receives Macbeth's deeply embedded anxieties about children and grief. This episode explores: Approaching Shakespeare as a collaborator rather than a proprietor — and what that means in practice for this production The concentric rings of Stephen's career: actor to director to artistic director to dramaturg How a…

People in this episode

Host: Stageworthy

Guest: Stephen Drover

Topics covered

• Shakespeare
• theatre direction
• cultural interpretation
• autism and ADHD in theatre
• new play development
• parenthood and grief

Keywords

• Macbeth
• Shakespeare
• theatre
• direction
• autism
• ADHD
• Vancouver
• Bard on the Beach
• parenthood
• grief

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bard on the Beach

Books & works: Macbeth

Places: Vancouver

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