Synopsis
A theater, film, and TV producer explores spontaneous theater.
About the Author(s)
Jack Shepherd (1920- ) has worked for most of his life in the theater, both for the Religious Society of Friends and the larger world. He joined the Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, England, when he was nine years old, an age at which most children are being encouraged to keep quiet rather than speak. This was in 1929, and the next decade was to see the popular theater almost vanish as it was replaced by the cinema. Jack Shepherd has thus had an opportunity to live and work through the coming and going of many dramatic media, and has learned how to cope with the hazards inevitable to the sort of spontaneous drama described in his Pendle Hill pamphlet. He served in the navy during the Second World War and later was a journalist in Asia. He joined the Religious Society of Friends in 1954. While in Hong Kong in 1957, he managed a “world first” by producing the first television play ever presented in Chinese. After spending eight years in London writing plays for television, he came to Pendle Hill in 1966, supposedly for one term. He continued to work and study at Pendle Hill for the next eight years, and his wife Janet Shepherd served as dean.
Upon returning to London, Jack worked as a freelance writer, creating scripts for television and radio. He also brought his talent in writing to the Young Friends groups in London (now Britain) Yearly Meeting. His work with the Leaveners, the Young Friends theatrical company, helped to build a tradition of performance within that yearly meeting. He retired to Kendal in 1992 and lives there to this day.
Pendle Hill Pamphlet #162
