Stead, Robert

From the New Zealand TV Weekly. 16 January, 1967

Robert Stead, former Wellingtonian, had many theatrical interests in Wellington in The years before 1949 when he left to take a production course at the Old Vic Theatre School, London, helped by a government drama bursary, He had been radio announcer and actor with the NZBC, producer for a local drama group and manager of The Australian tour of the Canterbury University Players, under the direction of Dame Ngaio Marsh. For the Festival of Britain he helped prepare a number of plays which Sir Tyrone Guthrie directed. His theatrical association with Dame Ngaio Marsh continued in 1951 when he toured New Zealand and Australia with The British Commonwealth Theatre Company, again under her direction. ln 1955, when lTV began in the United Kingdom, he joined Redifusion Television as a studio Floor Manager and later worked for the company in programme management. But his chief interest in television, as in the theatre, has been production rather than administration and he became a programme director five years ago. His first play was Euripides' Medea. Robert Stead is married to Elizabeth Nairn of Hawkes Bay.