Alan Ayckbourn
(Bio as of February 2001)
Alan Ayckbourn is the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, England, and the author of over 50 plays. More than half have been produced in London’s West End, at the Royal National Theatre or at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His plays have won numerous awards, been translated into over 30 languages, and are seen on stage and television throughout the world. They include Relatively Speaking, Absurd Person Singular. The Norman Conquests, Bedroom Farce, A Chorus of Disapproval, Woman in Mind, A Small Family Business, Things We Do for Love and Comic Potential. Among his plays for young people are the regularly performed Mr. A’s Amazing Maze Plays, Invisible Friends, Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations, The Boy Who Fell into a Book, Gizmo and Whenever, a musical. An established theater director, Alan Ayckbourn is also the holder of a number of honorary degrees; he is the recipient of a Montblanc de la Culture Award for Europe and a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1997 he became the first playwright to be knighted since Terence Rattigan. House and Garden premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre last summer, and played at the Royal National Theatre in the fall. He has just directed By Jeeves, a new musical co-written with Andrew Lloyd Webber, for the Pittsburgh Public Theater.