Stephen Drover (Drove) is at his final leg of the MFA Directing program and The Creation, his thesis production, marks the culmination of the two years of work. Before coming to UBC, he assisted at Neptune Theatre and the Atlantic Theatre Festival, directed independently with Bare Boards Theatre and No Strings Theatre, and was Associate Director for Theatre Newfoundland Labrador in his home province (which he misses dearly). Some of his favorite projects have been Romeo & Juliet, Of the Fields Lately (TNL), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Acting Up Entertainment), Woody, See Bob Run (Bare Boards Theatre), and The Bond (UBC). His interests lie primarily in how theatre relates to myth and ritual, both throughout theatre history and today, and how theatre might serve a social/ moral/ spiritual function above being public entertainment. Thanks to a great team for their hard work, The Heat for his advice and guidance, and Peter for his constant prodding. Notes from Stephen Drover Director, The Creation "The medieval era was a very vibrant time for theatre: the lyrical epic stories of the Barbarian tribes, mimes andminstrels who traveled the countryside, the Terence-based comedies of Hrotsvitha, and morality plays such as Everyman. But there was a greater force to be reckoned with. When the Latin-based Catholic liturgical drama broke free of the church building and found an unlikely mate in the popular religious vernacular plays being done in the streets, there evolved a theatrical phenomenon the likes of which we have never seen since: the mystery cycles. The European mystery plays were used to instruct and entertain the illiterate masses on Biblical stories and Catholicism and were huge events that spanned days and incorporated the entire community in the production and performance of the usual cycles of "The Creation", "The Passion" (the life of Christ), and "Doomsday" (the apocalypse). In 1996, with the aim of exploring the mystery plays and their relevance to contemporary culture and society, Edward Kemp and Katie Mitchell of the Royal Shakespeare Company set about producing one of the cycles, initially the mystery plays of York. Finding the original plays very problematic (they tend to be steeped in Catholic dogma, misogyny, and at times anti-Semitism) they instead chose to create a 'new version' taking as sources the original cycles plus the Bible, the apocrypha, and the Koran. The result was two parts of a complete cycle, The Creation and The Passion, both of which successfully retained a medieval form and language structure, but also addressed contemporary sensibilities, making the Judeo-Christian (and partly Islamic) creation myth an immediate and relevant story. This is a very simple story: that of God, the creation he calls "man", and their struggle to understand one another. It's also a very important story: the myth of creation as shared by millions and millions of people worldwide. It was this simplicity and importance that I found terribly exciting, both theatrically and spiritually. Why are we here? What is "God" like? What does he want of us? How should we behave? It's difficult to ask these questions today without natural, cynical, theophobic dismissals. But at the end of the day these are the big questions and the very ones that lie at the origins of theatre. I do not know if a play can answer any of them. But they're healthy questions to ask." Stephen Drover Director