Stephanie Sinclaire

Stephanie Sinclaire Lightsmith (February 28, 1954 – 14 April 2021), also known as Stephanie Crawford, was a poet, novelist, playwright, painter, teacher of inspirational creativity, and director in theatre and film. She published an anthology of poetry called Burnt Offering in 2002, as well as an auto-biographical novel: The Shores of Grace. In 2020 she published her philosophical magnum opus: Creative Alchemy, detailing the method that she developed for using creative expression as a healing modality.

Stephanie wrote and directed many plays and adaptations for theatre, as well as directing and producing films including:

Short Film & Academy Award Finalist: The Dance of Shiva (2000) Short FilmThe Tell Tale Heart (2004) Available to watch at BFI On Demand: Feature Film Silence Becomes You (2005) Feature Documentary A Maverick In London: The Story of The King's Head Theatre (2006)

Stephanie was Associate Artistic Director of the King's Head Theatre in Islington from 1990 - 2006 alongside her husband, Artistic Director and Founder: Daniel Frank Crawford. In 2002, Dan and Stephanie were jointly awarded Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee Award for services to theatre. After Dan's Death in 2005, Stephanie became Artistic Director of the King's Head (2006 - 2012), before emigrating to New Zealand in 2012 to be with her daughter, Katherine and grandchildren.

Early life

She was born Stephanie Anne Weiss on February 28, 1954, in New York to Harvard Law graduate and Naval officer Howard A Weiss and singer and painter Bernice Joan Smith. Her parents divorced and when she was three years old and her mother married Joseph DiLalla, a small band leader, who played with ‘Baby’ Rose Marie, Jimmy Durante, Louis Armstrong and others in Las Vegas and elsewhere, travelling continually around America in their Cadillac. She is one of nine siblings.

In 1968 she attended Windsor Mountain High School in Lenox, Massachusetts, a utopian experiment that began in Europe. In 1972 she enrolled in the California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, where she studied literature with absurdist playwright Michael McClure and painting while working for Laurel Burch jewellery design. She could not complete her degree as her father stopped paying the course fees as he disapproved of her living with a boyfriend.

Burnt Offering (2002) The Shores of Grace: An Odyssey (2002) Creative Alchemy: The Science of Miracles (2020) Available to purchase from Amazon:

Selected publications

Also published as God's Theory of Creativity