Biography
Steven Rumbelow has directed almost 200 productions (10 feature films, 64 Television episodic, about 40 major stage productions, close on 100 music videos plus TV Specials; 17 Commercials; dance and even an opera). These productions have won numerous awards between them including three Outstanding Film of the Year at the London Film Festival and his production of Moby Dick (starring William L. Petersen and Ted Levine) was nominated for 11 Chicago Jefferson Awards of which it won four. His reputation has been built on leading-edge, high-quality, independent production in all media. Productions that are highly conceptual and visually dynamic. He has consciously disciplined himself to direct in all media and he works regularly in Feature Film, Theatre, Television.
In feature film He has directed several notable feature films: "King Lear", "St. Joan", "Faust", "The Search", "The Proteus Chronicles", "Queen City Blowout", "Lost Souls", "Autumn", "Covenant" and "Vengeance. Between them they won over 20 awards at film festivals throughout the world. His coming slates include three films ranging from $1MM to $3MM and three more from $10MM to $15MM all being produced as part of a number of strategic alliances formed between Renegade Motion Pictures and other production, distribution and theatrical entities in the US, Canada and Italy.
He has directed 100 music videos for major labels such as A&M/Sony, WEA, Polygram, Atlantic etc. with A, B and C bands. His music videos have appeared on high rotation in all major television markets including MTV, Much Music, BET and BBC.
Television experience is mainly special interest programming such as four seasons (52 episodes) of "Beyond" for the Space Channel and then ComCast, the anarchic series "The New Television", as a Producer for QTV the pirate satellite TV Station, and his 90 minute TV special "Ghosts" for The Space Channel. He has directed a number of Bessie Nominated or Awarded commercials. Worked as a staff director for Derek Van Lint (DVLA) directing high-end commercials during the 1990's.
As a writer he has over 120 produced works to his credit in all media. These include about 90 produced works for large and small screen and forty stage adaptations or original plays.
On stage he worked at The Old Vic, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Bristol Old Vic, Steppenwolf Theatre - Chicago, The Goodman Theatre - Chicago, The West End (7 productions), Ohio SOHO Theater - New York, as well as having led production projects for Grotowski's Teater Laboratorium. He was founder of one of the world's foremost physical theatre companies, Triple Action Theatre and in Canada he has directed at many prominent theaters including Theatre Passe Muraille, Premiere Dance Theatre and Buddies in Bad Times. His stage production of "Dr. Faustus" was the longest running tour in British stage history which was last seen in Toronto in 1997. His theatre work was the subject of four books during the 1970's. In the aughts his production of Faustus was staged in Belfast, N. Ireland.
Wanting to be in touch with the actors' process he decided at age 18 to learn how to act and has played principal or leading roles in 7 feature films and over 30 stage productions since that time.
He has lectured at 68 Universities and Institutes in Europe and North America executing experimental acting programs at many of them. He set up the Post Grad. Improvisation Program at York University in Toronto and also held a special course for the Communications Dept. at Northwestern and ran a project comparing human and primate communications at London Zoo. His workshop program "Leap In The Dark" was attended by over 10,000 actors around the world in the 1980's and most recently started his ACTRA accredited 'Edge' Series in Toronto in 1999. Since then he has held 14 workshops in the series.
He was co-founder of The Woman's Film Co-op and the Independent Theatre Council which is now Britain's main regulatory body for employment and safety standards in theatre. He also served on committees for the British Actors Equity Association and was instrumental in drafting and passing the Equity Co-op and the Equity C Touring agreements which facilitated the membership of over 2000 members who previously had been non-union working talent. Steven also ran several collaborations between Triple Action Theatre in the UK and Jerzy Grotowski's world renowned Theatre Laboratorium in Poland.
He played for Rugby Union for Bristol, Boxed in the WABA semi-finals, broke the Western Junior Squat Record (lifting 480lbs) played at competition level Kendo, Judo and Fencing. Raced motorcycle combination for one season in the UK. Played competition Chess for Bristol City. He studied Chi Dance with Dr. Darwin Teng (Director of Cultural Studies - University of Shanghai). He has performed trans-personal field studies with five shamans in remote areas of the world concentrating on the mechanics of 'literality' in performance and the anthropology of the performer. CGI, digital media, editing and web-casts has also been a continuous process of learning and improvement.
In family life he is married to Rachel since 2006. Son Dickon Tolson is an actor with extensive track in the UK and they worked together on "Autumn". He also brought his daughters Marin and Rene to work on set in theatre and television productions since they were young. The greatest tragedy he has faced was with the lost of his daughter Marin Rumbelow's life in 2004. His mother Rita was a Costume designer and Wardrobe Mistress who worked for the BBC for 15 years and was known for Costume Dramas and Dr. Who. Between Dickon and Rene he has five grandchildren.
