When asked what he planned to do when he retired, Adrian Stanley would reply with characteristic laconism, “Directors don’t retire, they die.”

He finally passed away on 9^th August, having continued to work despite suffering declining health over some years.  Since 1964, when contracted as their first professional Director of Productions at Reps Theatre, Harare, he elevated the society’s production standard to a professionalism seldom seen anywhere in amateur dramatics, directing hundreds of theatrical projects from Classical Greek drama to Shakespeare to Pinter and everything in between. As the hundreds of actors and technicians with whom he worked during his long career would testify, he was often a hard taskmaster, demanding total commitment to their art.  Adrian Stanley the man, however, was shy, self-effacing and intensely private, living modestly in a small house in Harare’s Avondale West.  His life was his work and his passion for it was an inspiration to the many who went on to make their careers on the stage in Zimbabwe and abroad. His passing marks the end of an era but his theatrical legacy  lives on.