Alan Ayckbourn
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Alan Ayckbourn (born April 12, 1939) is a popular and prolific English playwright.
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Life
Ayckbourn was born in London and wrote his first play at prep school when he was about 10. At Haileybury, he toured Europe and America with the school Shakespeare. He left school at 17 to go straight into the theatre with an introduction to Sir Donald Wolfit by his French master. Ayckbourn joined Wolfit on tour as an assistant stage manager and actor.
By 1957, Ayckbourn was acting with director Stephen Joseph at Scarborough. In 1959 he played Stanley in the second production of writer-director Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party.
Ayckbourn has written and produced some sixty plays in Scarborough and London and is the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Almost all of his plays receive their first performance at this theatre. More than 25 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967.
Major successes include Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests trilogy, Bedroom Farce, Just Between Ourselves, A Chorus Of Disapproval, Woman In Mind, A Small Family Business, Man Of The Moment and House & Garden. His plays have won numerous awards, including seven London Evening Standard Awards. They have been translated into over 30 languages and are performed on stage and television throughout the world.
Ayckbourn plays have also been filmed in French and English. Four of his plays have been seen on Broadway attracting two Tony nominations. In 1991, he received a Dramalogue Critics Award for his play Henceforward....
Although his plays have received major West End productions almost from the beginning of his writing career, and hence have been reviewed in British newspapers, Ayckbourn's work was for years routinely dismissed as being too slight for serious study. Recently scholars have begun to view Ayckbourn as an important commentator on the lifestyles of the British suburban middle class and as a stylistic innovator, experimenting with theatrical styles within the boundaries set by popular tastes.
Career
| 1956–57 | Stage manager and actor, Donald Wolfit's company, in Edinburgh, Worthing, Leatherhead, Scarborough, and Oxford |
| 1957–62 | Actor and stage manager, Stephen Joseph Theatre-in-the-Round, Scarborough, Yorkshire |
| 1962–64 | Associate director, Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire |
| 1964–70 | Drama producer, BBC Radio, Leeds |
| 1970— | Artistic director, Stephen Joseph Theatre-in-the-Round |
| 1986–88 | Associate director, National Theatre, London |
| 1991–92 | Professor of contemporary theatre, Oxford University |
Honours
Evening Standard award, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1990
Olivier award, 1985
Plays and Players award, 1987
D.Litt.: University of Hull, Yorkshire, 1981
D.Litt.: University of Keele, Staffordshire, 1987
D.Litt.: University of Leeds, 1987
C.B.E. (Commander, Order of the British Empire), 1987
Works
* indicates retitled
| 1959 | The Square Cat |
| 1959 | Love After All |
| 1960 | Dad's Tale |
| 1961 | Standing Room Only |
| 1962 | Christmas V Mastermind |
| 1963 | Mr Whatnot |
| 1965 | Meet My Father *Relatively Speaking |
| 1967 | The Sparrow |
| 1969 | How The Other Half Loves |
| 1970 | The Story So Far... *Me Times Me Times Me *Family Circles |
| 1971 | Time And Time Again |
| 1972 | Absurd Person Singular |
| 1973 | Fancy Meeting You *Table Manners (Norman Conquests) |
| 1973 | Make Yourself At Home *Living Together (Norman Conquests) |
| 1973 | Round And Round The Garden (Norman Conquests) |
| 1974 | Absent Friends |
| 1974 | Confusions |
| 1975 | Jeeves (re-written 1996 as By Jeeves) |
| 1975 | Bedroom Farce |
| 1976 | Just Between Ourselves |
| 1977 | Ten Times Table |
| 1978 | Joking Apart |
| 1979 | Sisterly Feelings |
| 1979 | Taking Steps |
| 1980 | Suburban Strains |
| 1980 | Season's Greetings |
| 1981 | Way Upstream |
| 1981 | Making Tracks |
| 1982 | Intimate Exchanges Consisting Of 8 Plays |
| 1983 | It Could Be Any One Of Us |
| 1984 | A Chorus Of Disapproval |
| 1985 | Woman In Mind |
| 1987 | A Small Family Business |
| 1987 | Henceforward... |
| 1988 | Man Of The Moment |
| 1988 | Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays |
| 1989 | The Revengers' Comedies |
| 1989 | Invisible Friends |
| 1990 | Body Language |
| 1990 | This Is Where We Came In |
| 1990 | Callisto 5 (re-written in 1999 as Callisto 7) |
| 1991 | Wildest Dreams |
| 1991 | My Very Own Story |
| 1992 | Time Of My Life |
| 1992 | Dreams From A Summer House |
| 1994 | Communicating Doors |
| 1994 | Haunting Julia |
| 1994 | The Musical Jigsaw Play |
| 1995 | A Word From Our Sponsor |
| 1996 | The Champion Of Paribanou |
| 1997 | Things We Do For Love |
| 1998 | Comic Potential |
| 1998 | The Boy Who Fell Into A Book |
| 1999 | House (House & Garden) |
| 1999 | Garden (House & Garden) |
| 2000 | Virtual Reality |
| 2000 | Whenever |
| 2001 | Gameplan (Damsels In Distress) |
| 2001 | Flatspin (Damsels In Distress) |
| 2001 | Roleplay (Damsels In Distress) |
| 2002 | Snake In The Grass |
| 2003 | My Sister Sadie |
| 2004 | Drowning on Dry Land |
| 2004 | Private Fears in Public Places |
See also
The Crafty Art of Playmaking, Palgrave Macmillan (US) 2003, ISBN 1403962294nl:Alan Ayckbourn