David gained an MA in Classics at the University of St. Andrews and remained to study for a PhD. While there, he tutored, and took part in an archaeological dig in Laconia, Greece, with Lord William Taylour.

Thereafter, David taught Classics for eleven years in Edinburgh, St. Andrews and York. During this time he founded the award-winning theatre company, Actors of Dionysus, for which he directed a wide range of Greek dramas throughout the UK as well as in Eire, Turkey and Albania, shot a video, recorded a Penguin Audiobook, appeared on Radio 4's 'Today’ programme, and worked on a project for Channel 4 with Tariq Ali and April de Angelis.

David has reconstructed and staged Euripides' Trojan Trilogy, and devises readings of Greek literature.

His translations and adaptations have been regularly performed by theatre companies across the world, and by actors including Simon Russell Beale, Dame Siân Phillips, Alex Jennings, Robert Powell, Fenella Fielding, Tom Conti, Stephen Greif, Stephen Fry and Jane Asher.

Over the past twenty-five years, no-one has done more than Stuttard to keep classical Greek drama alive on the English stage. Stuttard’s translations of Medea, The Bacchae and Lysistrata are among the best contemporary performance texts of Greek plays. Literary Review

David has written many books on the Classical World, edits Bloomsbury Academic’s Looking at... series on Greek drama, and contributes articles and book reviews to publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Minerva, History Today and The British Museum Magazine.

He is a Fellow of Goodenough College, London, lectures widely throughout the UK (including at literary festivals) as well as on tours and cruises of the Mediterranean (with Noble Caledonia), has taught at The University of Cambridge and teaches for The University of North Carolina and The Transatlantic Forum for Education and Diplomacy, of whose Advisory Board he is a member.