Rebecca Lenkiewicz is a British
playwrightA playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
.
She attended
Plymouth High School for GirlsPlymouth High School for Girls is a girls' grammar school founded in 1874. It is located on St Lawrence Road in Plymouth, Devon, England close to Mutley Plain and Plymouth city centre...
, then progressed to a BA in Film and English at the
University of KentThe University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
from 1985 to 1989 and then to a BA Acting Course at the
Central School of Speech and DramaThe Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
from 1996 to 1999.
Career
As a writer, her plays include
Soho: A Tale of Table Dancers which she wrote for the
Royal Shakespeare CompanyThe Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
Fringe in 2000, which won a Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival. Helen Raynor's production was revived in London on 2 February 2001, the first play to be staged at the
Arcola TheatreArcola Theatre is a studio theatre in Dalston, in the London Borough of Hackney. The theatre's ambition is to create and present high-quality theatre with a social and political relevance to its multicultural local community as well as a wider audience....
. Lenkiewicz also appeared in the play in the role of Stella.
With her second play in 2004 she won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright with
The Night Season, set in
SligoSligo is the county town of County Sligo in Ireland. The town is a borough and has a charter and a town mayor. It is sometimes referred to as a city, and sometimes as a town, and is the second largest urban area in Connacht...
and staged at the
Royal National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
in the Cottesloe by Lucy Bailey
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=8707&dspl=reviews http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/nightseason-rev.htm.
In July 2005 Lenkiewicz received generally encouraging reviews for her
Shoreditch Madonna, directed by
Sean MathiasSean Gerard Mathias is a British theatre director, film director, writer and actor.Mathias was born in Swansea, south Wales. He is known for directing the film, Bent, and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney...
at the
Soho TheatreSoho Theatre is a theatre in the eponymous Soho district of the City of Westminster. It presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret....
. A tale of love among the artists in an East London gallery, it starred
Francesca AnnisFrancesca Annis is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances, most recently in the BBC series Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Deceit.-Early life and education:...
and
Leigh LawsonLeigh Lawson is a film and stage actor, director, and writer.-Career:Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Lawson has acted in film and television since the early 1970s, directed plays in the West End and on Broadway...
.
http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/8685/shoreditch-madonna http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/shoreditch-rev.htm.
In January 2006 she and Abdulkareem Kasid created a new version of
The Soldier's TaleHistoire du soldat , composed by Igor Stravinsky, is a 1918 theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" . The libretto, which is based on a Russian folk tale, was written in French by the Swiss universalist writer C.F. Ramuz...
, set in Iraq, a music theatre piece by
Igor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
and
Charles Ferdinand RamuzCharles-Ferdinand Ramuz was a French-speaking Swiss writer.He was born in Lausanne in the canton of Vaud and educated at the University of Lausanne. He taught briefly in nearby Aubonne, and then in Weimar, Germany. In 1903, he left for Paris and remained there until World War I, with frequent...
, staged at the
Old VicThe Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/soldierstale-rev.htm. In August of the same year her play
Blue Moon Over Poplar was staged by the
National Youth TheatreThe National Youth Theatre is a registered charity in London, Great Britain, committed to creative, personal and social development of young people through the medium of creative arts....
company at the Soho Theatre
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/bluemoonpoplar-rev.htm.
In April 2008 her new adaptation of Ibsen's
An Enemy of the PeopleAn Enemy of the People is an 1882 play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen wrote it in response to the public outcry against his play Ghosts, which at that time was considered scandalous...
opened at the Arcola Theatre, directed by its founder
Mehmet ErgenMehmet Ergen is a Turkish-born theatre director, producer and entrepreneur, currently based in London Borough of Hackney. Ergen came to London from Istanbul in 1989 aged 22 speaking minimal English and with no intention on settling in the Capital...
.
http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/enemypeople-rev.htm.
Her new play
Her Naked SkinHer Naked Skin is a 2008 play by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. It is notable as the first play by a female writer to be produced on the main stage at the Royal National Theatre, where it premiered on 24 July 2008. The premiere was directed by Howard Davies. In an interview, the National's director...
, directed by Howard Davies, premiered on the Olivier stage at the NT in July 2008, the first play to be performed on the Olivier stage by a living female playwright. In January 2011 her play
The PainterThe Painter is a 2011 play by the British writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz on the life and relationships of JMW Turner. It premiered at the Arcola Theatre in January 2011 to mark its move to new premises...
on the life of JMW Turner premiered at the
Arcola TheatreArcola Theatre is a studio theatre in Dalston, in the London Borough of Hackney. The theatre's ambition is to create and present high-quality theatre with a social and political relevance to its multicultural local community as well as a wider audience....
to mark its move into new premises.
External links