Many of the plays available on this website have their origins in Steven’s role as Writer-in-Residence for the MA Performance programme at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in the mid 1990s; and over the past fifteen years as Programme Director of the American Theatre Arts BA (Hons) at Rose Bruford College. The material was created for both small and very large companies of actors providing, in particular, substantial roles for women. His work aims to foster a direct collaboration between actor and playwright, actor and designer, actor and technician.

Steven’s professional theatre work began with NXT (New Cross Theatre), which he co-founded in 1985. As an actor with the company, Steven has toured throughout Europe and North America, playing leading roles in the British premieres of works by David Mamet, Heiner Muller, Enzo Cormann and David Bown. For the company he has directed the premieres of his own adaptation of Blake Morrison’s The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper; The Erotica Project (in association with Shady Dolls Theatre Company); and a unique simultaneous live and on-line performance event of his own play The Spoils (in association with Rave Media).

His other plays include Homestead and Deadstock (Shady Dolls); a light gathering of dust (NXT, Edinburgh Festival); Kolonists (Bridge Lane, London & the Pelican Studio, New York); The Happiness Compartment (Soho Rep, New York and Greenwich Playhouse, London); and The Swing Left (Unlimited Theatre, Oxford and Leeds). He has provided English versions of the Estonian play Cold Come, Cranes Gone (Bridge Lane, London and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh) and Leoncavallo’s La Bohéme for the ENO (Coliseum).

Music Theatre

Steven has collaborated with composer Paul Englishby on a range of projects for stage and screen. Musical Theatre productions include amnesia and other means of escape (Young Vic Studio) and Visitation (Oval House). Steven provided lyrics for Paul’s BBC ‘Sound on Films’ Pictures On A Piano and The Score; the music-documentary Hidden Voices (BBC); and an oratorio, The Flood, recorded by the Tallis Chamber Choir. Paul composed music for Steven’s plays The Process, a light gathering of dust and the piano and song cycle for The Spoils.

Rose Bruford College

As Programme Director for the American Theatre Arts (BA Hons) programme at Rose Bruford College, Steven has directed or produced premieres of the work of Jennifer Haley, Lynn Nottage and Christopher Shinn. He has also forged a reputation for his innovative multi-media productions of the plays of Arthur Miller, Caryl Churchill and David Greig.

PTP/NYC

Steven has enjoyed a long association with the Potomac Theatre Project (PTP/NYC), which produced his plays The Spoils and a light gathering of dust in a double-bill entitled TERRITORIES at Atlantic Theatre’s off-Broadway Stage II in 2011, and have since staged platform performances of Glockenspiel (in 2013) and Ex (in 2015) as part of their ‘After Dark’ Series at the same venue.

The Swing Left has a vividly-edged individuality to each character.

Oxford Reviews Gate

Cracking ... Kolonists shows an impressive grasp of Soviet dramatic and political structures ... an informative, well-plotted homage to the Chekhovian tradition.

Time Out London

Homestead is that rare thing, a play based on another play which has a new, fresh, legitimate voice of its own.

British Theatre Guide

Dykes' interpretation of Lorca's La casa de Bernada Alba is a triumph.

The Stage (UK)