Described as ‘an impresario of great energy and enterprise’ (The Spectator), David translates, adapts, reconstructs and directs Greek dramas, as well as staging readings from Greek literature.

From 2016 to 2018, Just a Little Murder, David’s compilation of Greek Literature was regularly performed in London venues by Fenella Fielding and Stephen Greif.

‘In David Stuttard’s lively, modern translation, very funny and sometimes very moving, especially when its readers are as accomplished as Fenella Fielding and Stephen Greif.’ British Theatre Guide

‘The great luck of it is to be doing David Stuttard’s wonderful translations.’ Fenella Fielding

In 2020, an adapted version, Tears, Treachery … and Just a Little Murder, premiered with Sian Phillips and Stephen Greif. Following Stephen’s sudden death in 2022, this has been revised as It’s All Greek starring Sian Phillips and Robert Powell.

A companion piece, Women and Troy, starring Dame Siân Phillips and Rachel Donovan, will tour throughout 2025.

Since 2010, David has edited the Looking at... series on Greek drama, published first by Bloomsbury Press. Each contains essays by leading world scholars, together with David’s introductions and translations.

'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’s translations and adaptations are performed across the world.

Among projects he has directed are his own pastiche Greek tragedy, Economus Wrecked, for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today' programme and special fund-raising gala performances, including open-air productions of such tragedies as Medea, Antigone, Trojan Women and Bacchae.

Part of what makes David Stuttard’s production so confidently coherent is that he is both the director and the translator, so text and presentation work in harmony. Both achieve the contemporary resonance they desire with tact and subtlety… credible in the original Greek context, rich in its immediate resonance. Irish Times

David regularly takes part in academic discussions, including at the University of Edinburgh, The Open University and University College, London. In 2019 he took part in a conference in Geneva, The Emotions of Medea.

Actors of Dionysus

In 1993, David founded the touring theatre company, Actors of Dionysus, and he was Joint Artistic Director until 2004.

During this time, he translated, adapted and directed a wide range of classical plays including Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Choephoroi, Sophocles’ Antigone, Oedipus the King and Ajax, and Euripides’ Hekabe, Hippolytus, Electra, Medea and Trojan Women, and produced a new play, Blow Your Mind, Aristophanes!, for a project in association with Channel 4 and the British Film Institute.

With Actors of Dionysus, David also directed extracts of Greek tragedies in Graeco-Roman theatres throughout the Eastern Mediterranean,including in Turkey at Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus and Aspendus and in Albania at Butrint.

He subsequently made an audio recording of Trojan Women and published An Introduction to Trojan Women.

‘Thank god (you can pick which one) for theatre company Actors of Dionysus put the flesh on the bones of ancient Greek drama’. For 20 years, David Stuttard’s company have been bringing millennia-old plays to life.’ Time Out