He spent his early years at the Castle Hotel, Taunton, Somerset, where his father was manager, and which is now owned by his elder brother, Christopher (Kit) Chapman.
This later became one of the best known gay theatre companies in the UK, with former members including Antony Sher, Simon Callow, Tom Robinson and Miriam Margolyes.
The winning name chosen was "The Activists"; the logo of which was the letter "A" formed of nails, to signifying the driving edge and hard grittiness that typified the group's work.
Together with South African writer David Lan, workshop sessions were held with a group of gay teenagers to develop a play that would eventually become a touring production called Not in Norwich (see the following web-link).
He heard about the program at the Royal Court and went to England to see for himself: “It was my first opportunity to see what I had only read about for so many years, and it was an experience so moving and exhilarating that I returned to the council with renewed vigor.
I wrote to Robert Cushman, The Observer′s theatre critic, to find out exactly how the event was organized, and asked Ruth Goetz, a council-member who lived in London at the time, to do some detective work at the Court.
In 1984 he directed the world premiere of the play Holy Wars – Morocco and The Road to Jerusalem by Allan Havis, at the American Repertory Theatre.