Bryony Lavery
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Bryony Lavery (born 1947) is a British dramatist, known for her successful and award-winning 1998 play Frozen. In addition to her work in theatre, she has also written for television and radio. She has written books including the biography Tallulah Bankhead and The Woman Writer's Handbook, and taught playwriting at Birmingham University.
Biography[]
Lavery grew up in Dewsbury.[1]
Having begun her career as an actress, she decided that she was fed up with playing poor parts in plays, such as the left arm of a sofa, and decided to write plays with better parts for women.[citation needed] Early in her career she founded a theatre company called Les Oeufs Malades with actor , she also founded Female Trouble, More Female Trouble and served as artistic director of .
Her plays have a feminist undertone in them [2] and she has written plays (like More Light which has only one male speaking role) with almost entirely female casts. She has written more than twenty plays since 1976.[3] She has authored translations of foreign works such as her 2007 version of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.[citation needed] She has written five plays for the National Theatre Connections series. Frozen triggered a controversy and discussion about artistic sources and plagiarism and was the subject of a piece by Malcolm Gladwell published in The New Yorker and also collected in his book What the Dog Saw. In addition she also adapted Treasure Island, the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, into a play which was first performed on the Olivier Stage of the National Theatre, London, on 3 December 2014.[citation needed]
She was married to a man until her early thirties, but now identifies as gay.[1]
Selected works[]
- The Two Marias (1988) – Theatre Centre
- Her Aching Heart (1992)
- The Pink Paper's Play of the Year
- Peter Pan (1991) – a pantomime
- Goliath (1997)
- More Light (1997) – National Theatre Connections
- Frozen (1998)
- Nomination/Tony Award for Best Play
- Eileen Anderson Central Television Award
- TMA Best New Play Award
- The Magic Toyshop (2001)
- A Wedding Story (2000)
- Illyria (play) (2002) – NT Connections
- Last Easter (2004)
- Stockholm (2007) – Frantic Assembly
- Red Sky (2007, play) – NT Connections
- It Snows (2008, play) – NT Connections
- Breathing Underwater (1998 radio play) – BBC Radio 7
- Kursk (2009, play) – Young Vic
- Beautiful Burnout (2010) – Frantic Assembly / National Theatre of Scotland
- Dirt (2012, play) – Studio Theatre
- The Believers (2014, play) – Tricycle Theatre
Stage adaptations[]
- A Christmas Carol (by Charles Dickens, music and lyrics by Jason Carr) - Chichester Festival Theatre (2008, 2015) / Birmingham Repertory Theatre (2009, 2013) / West Yorkshire Playhouse (2010)
- Treasure Island (by Robert Louis Stevenson) - National Theatre (2014) / Birmingham Repertory Theatre (2016)
- Brighton Rock (by Graham Greene) - Pilot Theatre / York Theatre Royal / UK tour (2018)
- The Lovely Bones (by Alice Sebold) - Royal & Derngate, Northampton / Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse / Northern Stage / Birmingham Repertory Theatre / New Wolsey Theatre (2018)
- The Midnight Gang (by David Walliams, music and lyrics by Joe Stilgoe) - Chichester Festival Theatre (2018)
- Swallows and Amazons (by Arthur Ransome) - Storyhouse (2018)[4]
- The Book of Dust - La Belle Sauvage (by Philip Pullman) - Bridge Theatre (2020).[5]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b "Theatre Profile: An Interview with Bryony Lavery". Paula Citron | Critic, Broadcaster, Arts Journalist. 18 May 2012. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ [1] Guardian Interview UK
- ^ Interview: "Comedy of terrors" The Observer UK
- ^ "Swallows and Amazons". Storyhouse. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
- ^ "The Book of Dust - La Belle Savauage". The Bridge Theatre. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
External links[]
- Bryony Lavery at the Internet Broadway Database
- Bryony Lavery resume ~ United Agents Agency[permanent dead link]
- Bryony Lavery ~ Doollee.com Archived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- An article by Gladwell on the Play, Plagiarization, and Intellectual Property
- Bryony Lavery's radio plays
- Personal papers of Bryony Lavery held at DMU Archives
- 1947 births
- Living people
- English women dramatists and playwrights
- Lesbian writers
- LGBT writers from England
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
- LGBT dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century English women writers
- 20th-century English writers
- 21st-century British dramatists and playwrights
- 21st-century English women writers
- English biographers
- Women biographers
- Academics of the University of Birmingham
- 20th-century biographers
- English women non-fiction writers