SYLVIAN Productions is the collaborative partnership between writer Sylvia Dow and director Muriel Romanes. In 2018 they toured their successful production of STUFF, a play by Sylvia Dow, addressing the many issues surrounding hoarding and loss. This followed their first creative partnership Threads – a production for Stellar Quines Theatre Company in 2016.
If you would like to hear more about SYLVIAN Productions latest news sign up to the newsletter at the bottom of the page. You will receive an email every now and then letting you know about productions, projects and workshops.
Muriel has had a long and distinguished career as actor and director, which has earned her an outstanding reputation as a force in Scottish theatre.
She was Associate Director at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh where she directed several acclaimed productions including The Deep Blue Sea, Listening Heaven, Lavender Blue, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, If Only and Anna Karenina.
She co-founded and was Artistic Director of Stellar Quines Theatre Company. Notable productions include the award winning The Unconquered by Torben Betts (2007), Judith Adams’ adaptation of Muriel Sparks’ The Girls of Slender Means (2009) and Age of Arousal by Linda Griffiths, which won a CATS Best Director Award (2011). The List by Jennifer Tremblay (2012) won a Scotsman Fringe First, a Herald Angel and the CATS Award for Best Production. The Carousel and The Deliverance, the remaining two plays in Tremblay’s trilogy also won Scotsman Fringe Firsts in 2014 and 2015 respectively, making history as the first trilogy of plays to have received this award.
In 2016 Muriel moved on from Stellar Quines to pursue other theatre projects and in June 2016 she was awarded a CATS Award for exceptional contribution to Scottish Theatre and was also awarded an MBE for services to theatre.
After a long working life in a variety of roles in the arts, Sylvia embarked on a career as a playwright. Her first play A Beginning, a Middle, and an End toured the UK in 2012 with Greyscale Company, and Where is Otto premiered at the Visibility Festival, Turkey, in the same year.
She has had short work performed in Scotland, London and Mexico and is a member of playwriting collectives Village Pub Theatre and Thrawn Craws, her work often featuring in their readings events. Full-length plays include Blinded by the Light (Traverse) It’s Only Words (Oran Mor) and Threads (Stellar Quines).