Actor and writer Stephen Papps has a remarkable ability onstage to inhabit a multitude of characters. In his latest solo work Social Animal, written with Damon Andrews, he plays 13 characters, including three dogs.
In 2022's Timberrr! written by Andrews and Matt Chamberlain he played among many other parts a world champion axeman, and in his play Third Person Tense he was an actor playing an actor telling us a story in the third person about himself. They are all - somewhere there - in the head of Stephen Papps.
Solo shows - like the award-winning globally toured Blowing It, coiwritten with Stephen Sinclair - have been a theatre specialty. But in film and television over the years Papps' has popped up in everything from The Piano to Shortland Street and Power-rangers. It's a career that goes right back to 1991 when with End of the Golden Weather he began his career winning best actor at the New Zealand Film Awards.
Stephen joins Culture 101 ahead of Social Animal appearing at Tahi New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance in Pōneke Wellington, 18th to 20th of September with a winter national tour planned for 2026.
