Alan Ayckbourn

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Alan Ayckbourn

Writer, Director and Sound Designer

2018 marks Alan’s 59th year in the theatre. He is rarely if ever tempted by television or film, which perhaps explains why he continues to be so prolific.

He has written numerous plays. These have been translated into over 35 languages, are performed throughout the world and he and they have won countless awards. Nearly all were first staged at the SJT and he continues to direct and premiere his new work here. He was Artistic Director for 37 years, retiring from the post in 2009; this year he was honoured to become the SJT’s first Director Emeritus. This season he has also directed a revival of his 1978 play Joking Apart.

Since 2005, he and the SJT company have been regular visitors to the Brits Off Broadway Festival at 59E59 Theaters, New York, their work always attracting first class reviews. They have received a Drama Desk nomination and have twice been included in Time Magazine’s Top Ten Productions of the Year; 2018 was no exception as his 2017 play A Brief History of Women garnered universally enthusiastic reviews and regularly featured in The New York Times Critics’ Choice list.

In the past five years, there have been major revivals of Season’s Greetings and A Small Family Business at the National Theatre; Absent Friends, A Chorus of Disapproval, Communicating Doors, Relatively Speaking and How The Other Half Loves in the West End and at Chichester Festival Theatre, Way Upstream and The Norman Conquests. Earlier this year, his epic narrative for voices, The Divide, was re-staged at The Old Vic following its run at last year’s Edinburgh Festival.

He has received many Honorary Doctorates including recently and happily the very first Honorary Doctorate from CU Scarborough. The University of York acquired his archive in 2011. A recipient of the Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts, he has been inducted into American Theatre’s Hall of Fame and became the first British Playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Lifetime Achievement Awards. He was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre.