Plays: One

by Tony Stowers

Tony Stowers is an author, playwright, actor and teacher who was born in North East England in 1963 and now lives in North West France.

This collection, one of four volumes, features his hard-hitting but darkly humorous early plays, for theatre companies and actors with small budgets. “The Waiting Room” (1983) is a one-act play. In a deserted railway station waiting room, a stranger contemplates suicide while members of a dysfunctional family try in vain to save him because it can’t even save itself. “1979” (1984) covers the early life of Graham Barlow who leaves secondary school in 1979 aged 15. Unable to find work or adjust to the world forced on him and his class by Margaret Thatcher’s politics, he is sectioned in a psychiatric hospital before escaping to freedom and re-shaping his life. “The Bond” (1984) is about a stranger trying to return to his family and friends to make up for lost time. “The Conformist“ (1985) is adapted as a one-man show from the novel by Alberto Moravia. Young Marcello Clerici accidentally kills an older man, so to redeem himself he endeavours to lead as normal a life as possible. Unfortunately for him, this means adhering zealously to the politics of Mussolini’s Fascist government. “London Cousins” (1988) looks at the new opportunities offered to three migrants to London from different parts of the UK and whose existences brush almost imperceptibly against each other. Each play comes with notes and original publicity, where possible.

196 pages, Paperback

Published March 28, 2015

About the author

Tony Stowers was born into a working class family in North East England in 1963. A love of literature, a supportive English teacher, school pantos, theatre and writing sustained him through his early years, despite getting up to all manner of trouble associated with disenfranchised youth in small towns. In 1979, against his better instinct, he signed up for an apprenticeship but was fired in 1981 for daydreaming. From that moment he determined to become a writer and artist. 1981 - 1985 saw him experimenting with various styles of theatre and he became a published poet and performed much of his work to "punk" audiences or in support of the Miners' Strike. As well as attending various drama groups, he wrote theatre plays in the search for an original voice, highlights including "The Waiting Room" which featured a young Mark Gatiss and "Norm & Ahmed" by Alex Buzo. Unable to attend The Drama Centre, London as an acting student in 1984 due to being turned down for a grant because of professing a doubt in the existence of God when interviewed by Durham County Council, he went on writing, performing and publishing, some of his best poems having been recently set to music and recorded by French group Insanzo. In 1985, successful as an applicant to London's Central School of Speech and Drama, he left the North East and lived in London for the next 11 years. As well as graduating as an actor, he pressed on with his own unique vision and, despite an irregular and itinerant lifestyle, wrote some of his best plays in various squats and whilst living on friend's floors. In 1996 he returned to the North East and formed The Northern Line Theatre Company, beginning with TIE issue-based plays, 1997-2000 producing six new plays, employing up to 30 actors and technicians, giving many Equity cards and entertaining around 75,000 children. After a brief sojourn in France in 2002, he again returned to the North East and formed Associated Professional Artists and it was with this company he gained creative successes with "Space Jockey" and "X", employing up to 50 NE-based actors in a variety of workshops and read-throughs, as well as travelling in Europe and the UK to enhance his skills and knowledge. Today he lives in France and continues to create new theatre work which always strives for originality both in terms of writing and direction, as well as performing in challenging spaces. His most recent success is the one-man show "Gauguin's Ghost" which was first performed in Pont-Aven, Brittany in August 2009 in French and English at the same time! Happy to receive the label "maverick", Tony continues to write, act and direct and continues to strive to create original work and to challenge conventional ideas.