Tucked away down a modern back street in Leith, I struggle to find the house whose address I’ve been emailed by Stephan Tait. The numbers seem to go up and down in utterly random fashion – no pattern whatsoever. I do finally find the house I’m looking for and ring the bell. A large black man comes to the door, I don’t think this is Stephan. It transpires he’s one of Stephan’s helpers on whom the young man with big acting aspirations relies 24 hours a day.
Originally from Gilmerton, Stephan spent some time in Edinburgh’s south-side before moving to his current address in Leith four years ago. A one-storey, but large and pleasant sheltered housing apartment, the look of contentment on his face shows he absolutely loves it here; somewhere that affords him the freedom he’s craved for years.
Supported by the Thistle Foundation, Stephan’s first go at acting, “other than the school nativity play!”, came when Edinburgh-based Lung Ha’s Theatre Company’s former artistic director Clark Crystal asked him if he could stand in for a missing cast member.
Stephan got his first part with Lung Ha’s in 2007. Six to eight months later he performed in ‘Can We Live With You?’, a comical modern odyssey in which the MacScott family are prepared to swap life in Scotland for a one-way ticket to the Land of Delightful Things. His big break came when he got the leading role in ‘Il Panico di Pantalone’, a tale of marriage, inheritance, sleaze and redemption. He’s had the lead role in all of Lung Ha’s productions since then.
Maria Oller, Artistic Director at Lung Ha’s Theatre Company, says of her work with Stephan:
“Stephan is a very committed and talented actor. It is a great pleasure working with Stephan because he is always curious and searching for new things with a very positive attitude to the work. He is generous on stage and not afraid of failing when trying out new things. This is a real sign of an actor and Stephan’s knowledge of the art of acting is growing day by day. He also encourages other company members to work in a professional way by his way of being.”
Lung Ha’s produces two major productions per year. The small productions feature four to five actors and often tour around Scotland as well as go abroad on occasion. The large, full-cast productions run mainly at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh where Lung Ha’s has its base. Indeed, it seems that Stephan spends at least two to three days per week up at the Lyceum, cabbing it from his little house in Leith to what he fondly calls his second home.
Stephan has cerebral palsy. He is 24. He says although his impairment is relatively mild , it does require him to have 24/7 care workers at his flat in Leith. The care worker today is slumped on the couch beside us as I interview Stephan, and seems to be asleep. “Wake up you lazy sod!” jokes Stephan. I tell him it’s fine, I’m sure the chap is exhausted. Stephan is driven to and from work at Lung Ha’s, or sometimes he takes the bus with his care worker. He praises Lothian buses for being fully accessible to wheelchair users and welcomes the day when CityLink and the other national coach services, already partly there, get all their fleet of vehicles wheelchair-accessible.
While Lung Ha’s can’t afford to pay its actors, it does offer a small expenses stipend and, as Stephan rightly points out, it’s a great stepping-stone for disabled people or people with learning difficulties to getting the experience they need to pursue a professional acting career. All performers with Lung Ha’s also get a discount on food, drinks and tickets at the Traverse Theatre.
Stephan is hoping now to leave the voluntary sector behind and go professional, a key target among others being Edinburgh’s celebrated site-specific theatre company Grid Iron.
It was in a co-production between Grid Iron and Lung Ha’s that Stephan enjoyed his favourite role to date. ‘Huxley’s Lab’, in which he played the part of Professor Huxley, told the story of a dark laboratory in which researchers labour to create the perfect human. It questioned our current societal obsession with perfection and asked if we are sleepwalking into a new era of eugenics.
Nominated in the 2010 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS), it went on to win Best Ensemble. Hosted on the night by Karen Dunbar, Stephan remembers at the awards he and colleague John Edgar waiting to the side of the stage – “the only way on for wheelchair users” – knowing that if and when they heard the announcer say the words ‘site specific’, they’d won. “When the announcement came, we were performing cartwheels offstage!”
Stephan works a lot behind the scenes for Lung Ha’s, largely on the computer from his flat in Leith. He promotes their shows through Facebook as well as his personal website. He phones in to Leith FM’s Brunch show every Thursday to plug upcoming productions by the company.
He was the first wheelchair user to be president of the student association at Stevenson College in Edinburgh, as well as the youngest at 19. He’s been working every Monday for the past four years at Radio Lollipop at Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children. He also helps coach a local youth football team.
Find out more about what Stephan is up to by visiting his website.
