Stephen Edwards, who has died aged 63, was by his own admission a dreadful student at school until a teacher lit his spark for music. By the sixth form he had composed an opera, and a decade later he was working with Sir Peter Hall in the West End and on Broadway.
As Hall’s musical director, Stephen wrote the scores for acclaimed theatre productions such as Orpheus Descending (1989), starring Vanessa Redgrave, and Hamlet (1994), with Stephen Dillane. He also composed the music for Hall’s 1992 TV adaptation of The Camomile Lawn.
Stephen was born in Hornchurch, Essex, one of five children, and the only son, of Irene (nee Morris) and John Edwards, an insurance broker. At the local Billericay school he was a habitual truant before Stan Hewitt, the head of music, encouraged him and other students to make the most of their interest in composition. The result was The Man, Stephen’s first opera, staged at the school, and he then went into a freelance career. In 1988 he was hired to join the newly established Peter Hall Company, and Hall remained a friend until his death in 2017.
After 10 years with the company, Stephen threw himself into the role of composer and co-producer of a musical version of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Following a successful national tour in 1999, the show played for 10 weeks at the Savoy theatre in London. The Guardian praised Stephen’s music as a highlight.
Stephen then spent two years as artistic director at the New Pavilion theatre, Dublin, before becoming creative director of the Derby Playhouse in 2002. The Guardian described the theatre’s production of Stephen’s Moon Landing (2007), a portrayal of the Apollo space missions, as “musical theatre on its grandest scale”. In 2019, the Museum of Flight in Seattle staged Moon Landing to mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo mission.
But although the Playhouse earned rave reviews, it was struggling for survival. After a long-running dispute with Derby city council, it was forced to close in December 2007. Stephen had backed the theatre with his own money in his quest to save it.
He had met my friend Sarah Head, an actor, when she performed in his musical production of Animal Farm at Derby, and they married in 2014. Together they moved from London to Ramsgate, Kent, and Stephen continued his composing career. But in 2019 he was diagnosed with a rare illness, central nervous system vasculitis.
Stephen is survived by Sarah and their son, Harry, his son Alexander, from an earlier relationship, his father, and by his sisters, Annette, Karen, Rita and Verity.
