Christopher Paul Stebbings MBE is an actor and the artistic director of TNT Theater Britain (known in Japan as the International Theater Company London) and the American Drama Group Europe.[1] [2]
Stebbings was born in Nottingham and studied drama at Bristol University.[3] He trained in the Grotowski method with Triple Action Theatre in Britain and Poland. Stebbings founded TNT theatre in 1980 and received regular Arts Council funding for work in the UK. He has also acted for Nottingham Playhouse and TNT and directed and written for South Yorkshire Theatre; Paragon Ensemble, Glasgow; Tams Theatre, Munich; the St. Petersburg State comedy Theatre, the Athens Concert Hall, Megaron; and regularly for Teatro Espressivo in Costa Rica where his adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol "Cuenta de Navidad" is performed each year.[4] Paul is the most prolific foreign director of theatre in China, in both English and Mandarin. His three productions for the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre remain in their regular repertoire: The Taming of the Shrew, Oliver Twist and The Murder of Sherlock Holmes.[5] TNT theatre tours three to four times a year throughout much of China, produced by Beijing-based Milky Way [6] Paul Stebbings work in China is featured extensively in Nancy Pellegrini's book The People's Bard [7] TNT theatre website: https://www.tnttheatre.com/ His productions tour in Europe,[8] Asia, Central America and the Middle East.[9] Festival appearances include the award-winning Wizard of Jazz at the Munich Biennale, the Off-Broadway Festival in New York City, and award-winning performances at the Edinburgh Festival of The Murder of Sherlock Holmes, in which he played the title role. Paul recently (2017) directed Julius Caesar in Schlegel's German translation at the Munich Glyptothek.[10] His new play about the Syrian Civil War and the refugee crisis, My Sister Syria, toured Europe in 2017 and 2018. in 2019 his Spanish version of Lord of the Flies premiered in Costa Rica and toured to Peru. In 2021 he co-wrote the musical FRANKENSTEIN with composer Christian Auer for the Deutsches theater Munich. The musical will be performed in Spanish at the teatro Espressivo de Costa Rica in autumn 2023. His production of OTHELLO toured to 60 European castles and palaces in 2022 and closed the Royal Jubilee celebrations at Balmoral castle. Paul's productions of ROMEO & JULIET and MACBETH toured Latin America from Mexico to Chile in spring 2023 [11] where he received a Ministry of Culture award in Peru. Paul's work returns to China in November 2023. In autumn Paul premiers his own version (with Phil Smith) of Orwell's 1984.
Paul Stebbings lives in Munich with his wife, Angelika, a television executive.
He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to promoting British theatre and furthering British cultural interests in Asia.