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Alan Ayckbourn is one of
the world’s most popular and prolific professional playwrights. He has
written 76 full length plays and more than 20 other revues and plays for
children. He is also an acclaimed director, who Arthur Miller said directed
the definitive version of his play A View From The Bridge.
Alan was born in
Hampstead, London, on 12 April, 1939. His mother was Irene Maud Worley –
better known as the novelist Mary James - and his father Horace Ayckbourn,
lead violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Educated at Haileybury,
Alan left school at the age of 17 to pursue a career in the theatre
immediately gaining a job with the theatre impresario Sir Donald Wolfit. He
was with the company for three weeks as an acting stage manager for the
production The Strong Are Lonely at the Edinburgh Festival. Alan went
on to work
at theatres in Worthing,
Leatherhead and Oxford, before being employed in 1957 as a stage manager and
actor at the Library Theatre, Scarborough.
The Library Theatre had
been founded in 1955 by Stephen Joseph and was home to the UK’s first
professional theatre in the round company, Studio Theatre Ltd. Alan was
inspired by Stephen Joseph, who became a mentor and
encouraged Alan to both write and direct. Alan’s first professional writing
commission was inadvertently inspired by his acting career when he
complained about a role he was playing; Stephen threw down the gauntlet
saying that if Alan wanted better roles, he should write one himself. Alan
wrote The Square Cat. This was a success for the company in the
summer of 1959 and Stephen immediately commissioned a second play, Love
After All, for the winter of 1959.
Alan continued to act and
write for the Library Theatre until 1962 when he was involved in the
formation of the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, with Stephen Joseph and
Peter Cheeseman. This was the country’s first permanent professional theatre
in the round and Alan premiered two plays there, Christmas V Mastermind
and Mr Whatnot. The latter was produced in London in 1964 and
received such a critical mauling that Alan retreated to the BBC in Leeds as
a radio drama producer where he worked between 1964 and 1970.
Alan continued writing,
though, and produced Meet My Father for the Library Theatre in 1965.
This would be a turning point in his life. In 1967, the play – retitled
Relatively Speaking – opened in the West End and was a phenomenal hit.
It launched him into the
public eye and in quick succession, plays such as How The Other Half
Loves, Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests,
established Alan Ayckbourn as one of the country’s most popular and
successful playwrights. As of 2012, he has written 76 full length plays,
more than half of which have transferred to either the West End or the
National Theatre. At one point in 1975, he held the record for having the
most professional productions being performed simultaneously in the West End
(The Norman Conquests, Absurd Person Singular and Absent
Friends). His work has been translated into more than 35 languages and
his plays are regularly performed throughout the world.
Stephen Joseph died in
1967 and Alan, alongside Ken Boden, Alfred Bradley and Rodney Wood, worked
together to keep the Library Theatre alive. Although Alan was closely
involved with the theatre during this period, both writing, directing and
choosing plays for the company, he would not formally become Artistic
Director until 1972. Apart from a two year hiatus between 1986 and 1988
when he became a visiting director at the National Theatre, he remained
Artistic Director until retiring from that role on 31 March 2009.
Concurrent to this,
Alan’s directing career also flourished. He directed his first play in 1961,
Gaslight, at the Library Theatre and in 1963 directed the world premiere of one of his own plays for the first time.
Since 1967 he has directed the world premieres of all his plays and since
1977, he has directed all the West End premieres of his plays bar one. Since 1961,
Alan has directed more than 300 productions and is considered one of the
world’s pre-eminent directors of in the round staging.
He is hugely committed to
theatre-in-the-round, for which he has written the majority of his plays. It
is always worth remembering that when he stages a play in London or they are
performed in the proscenium arch, it is a step away from the author’s
original intention. It has frequently been stated that the definitive
production of Alan’s plays is the premiere production in the round in
Scarborough, where he has premiered all but four of his plays.
Alan Ayckbourn has
received more than 35 awards and honours including two Oliviers, a Tony, two Molieres and
Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the Variety Club of Great Britain and
the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. He was the 1992 Cameron Mackintosh
Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University and is also the
recipient of a Montblanc de la Culture Award for Europe for ‘establishing a
thriving theatrical tradition in Scarborough and for his dedication and
commitment to it’. In 2009, he was inducted into American Theater’s Hall of
Fame and received the prestigious Society's Special Award at the Laurence
Olivier Awards. The holder of a number of honorary degrees, he was appointed a CBE in
1987 and in 1997 was knighted for services to the theatre.
In 2010, he
received the prestigious Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the
Theatre. His plays have been
regularly staged in America and more than 10 have been produced on Broadway
and Off-Broadway. In 1975 he held the record for having the most plays
simultaneously running on Broadway (The Norman Conquests and
Absurd Person Singular). However, he would probably consider his
greatest success in the States came in 2005, when he took his Scarborough
company to the 59E59 Theaters’ Brits Off Broadway Festival to present
Private Fears In Public Places. The month-long run was an unprecedented
success receiving great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. The New
York Times proclaimed it “altogether wonderful” and the cast “flawless”. In
2007, his production of Intimate Exchanges also toured to the
Festival where it broke box office records at 59E59 Theaters and received a
Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Play. Since then he has also toured My Wonderful Day in 2009, which also received a Drama Desk Outstanding Play award nomination, and Neighbourhood Watch in 2011 to the festival.
In February 2006, Alan
suffered a stroke leading to the announcement in June 2007 that he would
step down as the Artistic Director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre. He would
officially step down in 2009 but continues to be committed to
premiering and producing plays at the venue.
Copyright: Simon Murgatroyd 2012
A regularly updated mini-biography,
suitable for reproducing in programmes, is also available for free
reproduction and can be found on the Downloads page here.
* For further details about Alan's position as
Artistic Director and the confusion over the year he took the job, click
here.
** For further details about Alan Ayckbourn stepping down as Artistic
Director, click here.
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