Joe Penhall's plays include Some Voices (1994); Pale Horse (1995); In Love and Understanding (1997); The Bullet (1998), Blue/Orange (2000 - Evening Standard Best Play Award, the Critics' Circle Award for Best New Play and the 2001 Olivier Award for Best New Play), Haunted Child (2011), Birthday (2012) and Sunny Afternoon (2014).
Aleks Sierz is the theatre critic of Tribune and a freelance theatre reviewer. He is a lecturer in modern British theatre whose seminal study, In-Yer-Face Theatre, defined a new generation of writers and their work. In 2006 Methuen Drama published his guide, The Theatre of Martin Crimp, which was followed up by 2012's Modern British Playwriting: the 1990s. Sierz's journalism has featured in the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent. He is a widely read, highly regarded critic of modern British theatre.Aleks Sierz FRSA is Visiting Professor at Rose Bruford College, London, UK, and author of In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (Faber, 2001), John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (Continuum, 2008), Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (Methuen Drama, 2011) and Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s (Methuen Drama 2012). He alsoworks as a journalist, broadcaster, lecturer and theatre critic.
Kwame Kwei-Armah is British actor, playwright, director, singer and broadcaster. In 2018 he was made Artistic Director of the Young Vic Theatre, where he has directed Twelfth Night and Tree. From 2011 to 2018 he was the Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage where his directing credits include: Jazz, Marley, One Night in Miami, Amadeus, and Dance of the Holy Ghosts. As a playwright his credits include Tree (Manchester International Festival, Young Vic), One Love (Birmingham Repertory Theatre), Beneatha´s Place (Baltimore Center Stage) Elmina´s Kitchen, Fix Up, Statement of Regret (National Theatre) Let There Be Love and Seize the Day (Tricycle Theatre). Kwame was an Associate Director of the Donmar Warehouse and has served on the boards of the National Theatre, Tricycle Theatre, and Theatre Communications Group. He is Chair of the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, was Chancellor of the University of the Arts London from 2010 to 2015, and in 2012 was awarded an OBE for Services to Drama.
Anthony Neilson (b. 1967, Edinburgh) is a Scottish playwright and director. His breakthrough show Normal: The Dusseldorf Ripper was produced at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in 1991. Other shows include The Wonderful World of Dissocia (2004), Realism (2006), Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness (2009) and Orson Welles in the Land of the Peas (2010). He also took part in the Bush Theatre's Sixty Six in 2011.
Bola Agbaje is a playwright who graduated from the young writers programme at the Royal Court in 2007. Her first play Gone Too Far! was performed at the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs) in February 2007. In 2008, the play won the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliated Theatre. The play was revived in 2008 and returned for a run in the main Downstairs space at the Court, as well as at the Hackney Empire and Albany Theatre. Agbaje was also nominated for the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright of the Year in 2008. Other plays include Off the Endz and Belong.
Simon Stephens began his theatrical career in the literary department of the Royal Court Theatre, where he ran its Young Writers' Programme. His plays for theatre include Bluebird (Royal Court Theatre) Herons (Royal Court Theatre, 2001); Port (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 2002); One Minute (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 2003 and Bush Theatre, London, 2004); Christmas (Bush Theatre, 2004); Country Music (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 2004); On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange Theatre and National Theatre, London, 2005); Motortown (Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, 2006); Pornography (Tricycle Theatre, London, 2009); Harper Regan (National Theatre, 2008); Sea Wall (Bush Theatre, 2009); Heaven (Traverse Theatre, 2009); Punk Rock (Lyric Hammersmith, London, 2009); The Trial of Ubu (Essen Schauspielhaus/Toneelgroep Amsterdam, 2010); A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky (co-written with David Eldridge and Robert Holman; Lyric Hammersmith, London, 2010); Wastwater (Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, 2011); Morning (Lyric Hammersmith, 2012); an adaptation of A Doll's House (Young Vic, 2012); an adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (National Theatre, 2012); Blindsided (Royal Exchange, 2014); and Birdland (Royal Court, 2014). His radio plays include Five Letters Home to Elizabeth (BBC Radio 4, 2001) and Digging (BBC Radio 4, 2003). Awards include the Pearson Award for Best New Play, 2001, for Port; Olivier Award for Best New Play for On the Shore of the Wide World, 2005; and for Motortown German critics in Theater Heute's annual poll voted him Best Foreign Playwright, 2007. His adaptation of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play.
