Sir Tom Stoppard OM,
CBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, FRSL (born
Tomáš Straüssler 3 July 1937) is a British playwright,
knightedThe rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as
ArcadiaArcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge...
,
The Coast of UtopiaThe Coast of Utopia is a 2002 trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, written by Tom Stoppard with focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866...
,
Every Good Boy Deserves FavourEvery Good Boy Deserves Favour is a stage play by Tom Stoppard with music by André Previn. It was first performed in 1977. The play criticizes the Soviet practice of treating political dissidence as a form of mental illness. Its title derives from the popular mnemonic used by music students to...
,
Professional Foul,
The Real ThingThe Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
, and
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He co-wrote the screenplays for
BrazilBrazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...
and
Shakespeare in LoveShakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....
and has won one Academy Award and four Tony Awards. Themes of human rights, censorship and political freedom pervade his work along with exploration of linguistics and philosophy. Stoppard has been a key playwright of the
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...
and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation.
In 1939, Stoppard left Czechoslovakia as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright. He has been married twice, to Josie Ingle (1965–1972) and
Miriam StoppardMiriam Stoppard OBE , is a British doctor, author, television presenter and agony aunt.- Early life and medical career :...
(1972–1992), and has two sons from each marriage, one of whom is actor
Ed StoppardEdmund Stoppard , often credited as Ed Stoppard, is a British actor.-Life and career:Stoppard was born in London, United Kingdom, the son of playwright Tom Stoppard and physician/author Miriam Stoppard , through whom he is related to former MP Oona King...
.
Early years
Stoppard was born Tomáš Straüssler, in
ZlínZlín , from 1949 to 1989 Gottwaldov , is a city in the Zlín Region, southeastern Moravia, Czech Republic, on the Dřevnice River. The development of the modern city is closely connected to the Bata Shoes company...
, a "Shoe Town", in the
MoraviaMoravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
region of
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
. He was the son of Martha Beckova and Eugen Straüssler, a doctor with the
Bata shoe companyBata Shoes is a large, family owned shoe company based in Bermuda but currently headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, operating 3 business units worldwide – Bata Metro Markets, Bata Emerging Markets and Bata Branded Business. It has a retail presence in over 50 countries and production...
. Both parents were Jewish, though neither practising. Just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, the town's patron,
Thomas J. BataTomáš Jan Baťa, , also known as Tomas Bata Jr. and Tomáš Baťa ml. and "Shoemaker to the World", ran the Bata Shoe Company from the 1940s until the '80s. His last name pronounce baht-ya....
, helped re-post his Jewish employees, mostly physicians, to various branches of his firm all over the world. On 15 March 1939, the day that the
NazisNazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
invaded Czechoslovakia, the Straüssler family fled to
SingaporeSingapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, one of the places Bata had a company.
Before the
Japanese occupation of SingaporeThe Japanese occupation of Singapore in World War II occurred between about 1942 and 1945 after the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942. Military forces of the Empire of Japan occupied Singapore after defeating the combined Australian, British, Indian and Malayan garrison in the Battle of Singapore...
, the two sons and their mother were sent on to
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Stoppard's father remained in Singapore as a British army volunteer, knowing that, as a doctor, he would be needed in its defence. His father died when Stoppard was four years old. In the book
Tom Stoppard in conversation, Stoppard tells how his father died in Japanese captivity, a
prisoner of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
[BBC John Tusa]Sir John Tusa is a British arts administrator, and radio and television journalist. From 1980 to 1986 he was a main presenter of BBC 2's Newsnight programme. From 1995 until 2007 he was managing director of the City of London's Barbican Arts Centre...
Interview (Audio 43 mins). although Straüssler is also commonly reported to have drowned on board a ship bombed by Japanese forces.
From there, in 1941, when Tomas was five, the three were evacuated to
Darjeeling in India. The boys attended the Mount Hermon American multi-racial school where Tomas became Tom and his brother Petr became Peter.
In 1945, his mother Martha married British army major Kenneth Stoppard, who gave the boys his English surname and, in 1946, after the war, moved the family to England. His stepfather believed strongly that "to be born an Englishman was to have drawn first prize in the lottery of life", telling his small stepson: "Don't you realise that I made you British?"
setting up Stoppard's desire as a child to become "an honorary Englishman". "I fairly often find I'm with people who forget I don't quite belong in the world we're in", he says. "I find I put a foot wrong – it could be pronunciation, an arcane bit of English history – and suddenly I'm there naked, as someone with a pass, a press ticket." This is reflected in his characters, he notes, who are "constantly being addressed by the wrong name, with jokes and false trails to do with the confusion of having two names".
Stoppard attended the Dolphin School in Nottinghamshire, and later completed his education at
Pocklington SchoolPocklington School, is an independent school in Pocklington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1514 by John Dolman. The school is situated in of land, on the outskirts of a small market town, from York and from Hull. It is an Anglican foundation and Friday morning church is...
in
East RidingThe East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Yorkshire, is a local government district with unitary authority status, and a ceremonial county of England. For ceremonial purposes the county also includes the city of Kingston upon Hull, which is a separate unitary authority...
, Yorkshire, which he hated.
Stoppard left school at seventeen and began work as a journalist for
Western Daily PressThe Western Daily Press is a regional newspaper covering parts of South West England , mainly Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset as well as the metropolitan areas of Bath and North East Somerset and the Bristol area. It is published Monday to Saturday in Bristol, UK...
in Bristol, never receiving a university education, having taken against the idea.
Years later he came to regret not going to university, but loved his time as a journalist and felt passionately about his career at the time.
He remained at the paper from 1954 until 1958, when the
Bristol Evening World offered Stoppard the position of feature writer, humour columnist, and secondary drama critic, which took Stoppard into the world of theatre. At the
Bristol Old VicThe Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
– at the time a well-regarded regional repertory company – Stoppard formed friendships with director
John BoormanJohn Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
and actor
Peter O'ToolePeter Seamus Lorcan O'Toole is an Irish actor of stage and screen. O'Toole achieved stardom in 1962 playing T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and then went on to become a highly-honoured film and stage actor. He has been nominated for eight Academy Awards, and holds the record for most...
early in their careers. In Bristol, he became known more for his strained attempts at humour and unstylish clothes than for his writing.
Career
Stoppard wrote short radio plays in 1953-4 and by 1960 he had completed his first stage play,
A Walk on the Water, which was later re-titled
Enter a Free Man (1968).
He noted that the work owed much to
Robert BoltRobert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.-Career:He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended the University of Manchester, and, after war service, the University of...
's
Flowering Cherry and
Arthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
's
Death of a SalesmanDeath of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...
. Within a week after sending
A Walk on the Water to an agent, Stoppard received his version of the "Hollywood-style telegrams that change struggling young artists' lives." His first play was optioned, staged in
Hamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, then broadcast on British Independent Television in 1963. From September 1962 until April 1963, Stoppard worked in London as a drama critic for
Scene magazine, writing reviews and interviews both under his name and the pseudonym
William BootWilliam Boot is a fictional journalist who is the protagonist in the 1938 Evelyn Waugh comic novel Scoop.-Character:Boot is the young author of a regular column on country life for a London newspaper named the Daily Beast; his affected style is typified in the notorious sentence "Feather-footed...
(taken from
Evelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's
Scoop). In 1964, a
Ford FoundationThe Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
grant enabled Stoppard to spend 5 months writing in a Berlin mansion, emerging with a one-act play titled
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, which later evolved into his Tony-winning play
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In the following years, Stoppard produced several works for radio, television and the theatre, including
"M" is for Moon Among Other Things (1964),
A Separate Peace (1966) and
If You're Glad I'll Be Frank (1966). On 11 April 1967 — following acclaim at the 1966
Edinburgh FestivalThe Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
— the opening of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in a
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...
production 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...
made Stoppard an overnight success.
JumpersJumpers is a 1972 play by Tom Stoppard. It explores and satirises the field of academic philosophy, likening it to a less-than skilful competitive gymnastics display...
(1972) places a professor of moral philosophy in a murder mystery thriller along side a slew of radical gymnasts and
Travesties (1974), explored the '
WildeanOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
' possibilities arising from the fact that Lenin, Joyce, and Tristan Tzara had all been in
ZurichZurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
during the First World War.
In his early years, he also wrote extensively for
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio, often introducing surrealist themes. He has also adapted many of his stage works for radio, film and television winning extensive awards and honours from the start of his career.
Stoppard has written one novel,
Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966), set in contemporary London. Its cast includes the 18th-century figure of the dandified Malquist and his ineffectual
BoswellJames Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, Moon, and also cowboys, a lion (banned from
the RitzThe Ritz London is a luxury 5-star hotel located in Piccadilly and overlooking Green Park in London.- History :Swiss hotelier César Ritz, former manager of the Savoy Hotel, opened the hotel on 24 May 1906...
) and a donkey-borne Irishman claiming to be the Risen Christ.
In the 1980s, in addition to writing his own works, Stoppard translated many plays into English, including works by Sławomir Mrożek,
Johann NestroyJohann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath...
,
Arthur SchnitzlerDr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
, and
Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
. It was at this time that Stoppard became influenced by the works of Polish and Czech absurdists. He has been co-opted into the
OutrapoOutrapo stands for "Ouvroir de tragicomédie potentielle", which translates roughly as "workshop of potential tragicomedy." It was founded in London, in 1991, and it seeks to mine the potentialities of stage performance, using new or preexistent constraints...
group, a far-from-serious French movement to improve actors' stage technique through science.
Stoppard has also co-written screenplays including
Indiana Jones and the Last CrusadeIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas. It is the third film in the Indiana Jones franchise. Harrison Ford reprises the title role and Sean Connery plays Indiana's father, Henry...
.
SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
states that though Stoppard was uncredited, "he was responsible for almost every line of dialogue in the film". It is also rumoured that Stoppard worked on
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the SithStar Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....
, though again Stoppard received no official or formal credit in this role. He worked in a similar capacity with
Tim BurtonTimothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
on his film
Sleepy HollowSleepy Hollow is a 1999 American period horror film directed by Tim Burton. It is a film adaptation loosely inspired by the 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving and stars Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Marc Pickering, Michael Gambon, Jeffrey Jones,...
. In 2008, Stoppard was voted the number 76 on the
Time 100Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has become an annual event.-History and format:...
,
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine's list of the most influential people in the world.
Stoppard serves on the advisory board of the magazine
StandpointStandpoint is a monthly British cultural and political magazine. Its premier issue was published at the end of May 2008 – the first launch of a major current affairs publication in the UK in more than a decade....
, and was instrumental in its foundation, giving the opening speech at its launch.
Themes
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966–7) was Stoppard's first major play to gain recognition. The story of
HamletThe Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, as told from the viewpoint of two courtiers echoes
BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
in its double act repartee, existential themes and language play.
["Stoppard, Tom" The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance. Edited by Dennis Kennedy. Oxford University Press Inc.] "Stoppardian" became a term describing works using wit and comedy while addressing philosophical concepts.
Critic Dennis Kennedy notes "It established several characteristics of Stoppard's dramaturgy: his word-playing intellectuality, audacious, paradoxical, and self-conscious theatricality, and preference for reworking pre-existing narratives... Stoppard's plays have been sometimes dismissed as pieces of clever showmanship, lacking in substance, social commitment, or emotional weight. His theatrical surfaces serve to conceal rather than reveal their author's views, and his fondness for towers of paradox spirals away from social comment. This is seen most clearly in his comedies
The Real Inspector Hound (1968) and
After Magritte (1970), which create their humour through highly formal devices of reframing and juxtaposition."
Stoppard himself went so far as to declare "I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness." He acknowledges that he started off "as a language nerd", primarily enjoying linguistic and ideological playfulness, feeling early in his career that journalism was far better suited for presaging political change, than playwriting.
The accusations of favouring intellectuality over political commitment or commentary were met with a change of tack, as Stoppard produced increasingly socially engaged work.
From 1977, he became personally involved with human rights issues, in particular with the situation of political dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe. In February 1977, he visited the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries with a member of
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
. In June, Stoppard met
Vladimir BukovskyVladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist....
in London and travelled to Czechoslovakia (then under communist control), where he met dissident playwright and future president
Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, whose writing he greatly admires.
Stoppard became involved with
Index on CensorshipIndex on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...
, Amnesty International, and the Committee Against Psychiatric Abuse and wrote various newspaper articles and letters about human rights. He was also instrumental in translating Havel's works into English.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977), ‘a play for actors and orchestra’ was based on a request by composer
André PrevinAndré George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
; inspired by a meeting with a Russian exile. This play as well as
Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's MacbethDogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth are two plays by Tom Stoppard, written to be performed together. This was not the first time that Stoppard had made use of Shakespearian texts in his own plays or even the first time he had used Hamlet although the context is far different from that of his earlier...
(1979),
The Coast of Utopia (2002),
Rock ‘n’ Roll (2006), and two works for television
Professional Foul (1977) and
Squaring the Circle (1984) all concern themes of censorship, rights abuses, and state repression.
Stoppard's later works have sought greater inter-personal depths, whilst maintaining their intellectual playfulness. Stoppard acknowledges that around 1982 he moved away from the "argumentative" works and more towards plays of the heart, as he became "less shy" about emotional openness. Discussing the later integration of heart and mind in his work, he commented "I think I was too concerned when I set off, to have a firework go off every few seconds... I think I was always looking for the entertainer in myself and I seem to be able to entertain through manipulating language... [but] it's really about human beings, it's not really about language at all." He was inspired by a
Trevor NunnSir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
production of
GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
's
Summerfolk to write more a trilogy of more 'human' plays:
(1982) uses a
meta-theatricalThe term "metatheatre", coined by Lionel Abel, has entered into common critical usage; however, there is still much uncertainty over its proper definition and what dramatic techniques might be included in its scope...
structure to explore the suffering that adultery can produce and
The Invention of Love (1997) also investigates the pain of passion.
Arcadia (1993) explores the meeting of
chaos theoryChaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
, historiography, and landscape gardening.
He has commented that he loves the medium of theatre for how 'adjustable' it is at every point, how unfrozen it is, continuously growing and developing through each rehearsal, free from the text. His experience of writing for film is similar, offering the liberating opportunity to 'play God', in control of creative reality. It often takes four to five years from the first idea of a play to staging, taking pains to be as profoundly accurate in his research as he can be.
Personal life
Stoppard has been married twice, to Josie Ingle (1965–1972), a nurse, and to
Miriam StoppardMiriam Stoppard OBE , is a British doctor, author, television presenter and agony aunt.- Early life and medical career :...
(
née Stern and subsequently Miriam Moore-Robinson, 1972–1992), whom he left to begin a relationship with actress
Felicity KendalFelicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...
. He has two sons from each marriage: Oliver Stoppard, Barnaby Stoppard, the actor
Ed StoppardEdmund Stoppard , often credited as Ed Stoppard, is a British actor.-Life and career:Stoppard was born in London, United Kingdom, the son of playwright Tom Stoppard and physician/author Miriam Stoppard , through whom he is related to former MP Oona King...
and Will Stoppard, who is married to violinist
Linzi Stoppard-Biography:Linzi Stoppard started taking violin lessons at the age of four. She grew up in Surrey, and was trained under the Suzuki method.At the age of eighteen, Linzi Stoppard signed her first modeling contract, while still teaching and playing session violin...
.
In 1979, the year of
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
's election, Stoppard noted to Paul Delaney: "I'm a conservative with a small c. I am a conservative in politics, literature, education and theatre." In 2007, Stoppard described himself as a "timid
libertarianLibertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
".
Stoppard sat for sculptor
Alan ThornhillAlan Thornhill is a British artist and sculptor whose long association with clay developed from pottery into sculpture. His evolved methods of working enabled the dispensing of the sculptural armature to allow improvisation, whilst his portraiture challenges notions of normality through rigorous...
, and a bronze head is now in public collection, situated with the Stoppard papers in the reading room of the Harry Ransom Center at the
University of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. The terracotta remains in the collection of the artist in London. The correspondence file relating to the Stoppard bust is held in the archive of the
Henry Moore FoundationThe Henry Moore Foundation is a registered charity in England, established for education and promotion of the fine arts — in particular, to advance understanding of the works of Henry Moore. The charity was set up with a gift from the artist in 1977...
's Henry Moore Institute in
LeedsLeeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
.
The Tom Stoppard Prize was created in 1983 (in Stockholm, under the
Charter 77Charter 77 was an informal civic initiative in communist Czechoslovakia from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, and Pavel Kohout. Spreading the text of the document was...
Foundation) and is awarded to authors of Czech origin.
Stoppard's mother died in 1996. The family had not talked about their history and neither brother knew what had happened to the family left behind in Czechoslovakia. In the early 1990s, with the fall of communism, Stoppard found out that all four of his grandparents had been Jewish and had died in
TerezinTheresienstadt concentration camp was a Nazi German ghetto during World War II. It was established by the Gestapo in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín , located in what is now the Czech Republic.-History:The fortress of Terezín was constructed between the years 1780 and 1790 by the orders...
, Auschwitz and other camps, along with three of his mother's sisters. In 1998, following the deaths of his parents he went back, for the first time, to Zlín after 60 years.
He has expressed grief both for a lost father and a missing past, but he has no sense of being a survivor, at whatever remove. "I feel incredibly lucky not to have had to survive or die. It's a conspicuous part of what might be termed a charmed life."
[Guardian interview with Stoppard 6 September 2008 You can't help being what you write accessed 2010-02-2010]
Stoppard,
Kevin SpaceyKevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
,
Jude LawDavid Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
, and others, joined protests against the regime of
Alexander LukashenkoAlexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko has been serving as the President of Belarus since 20 July 1994. Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko worked as director of a state-owned agricultural farm. Under Lukashenko's rule, Belarus has come to be viewed as a state whose conduct is out of line...
in March 2011, showing their support for the
Belarusian democracy movement-Background:Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994. United Nations Human Rights Council noted that Belarusian political system is “incompatible with the concept of human rights”.- Charter 97 :...
.
Awards
- 1967: Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright (UK)
- 1967: Plays and Players London Theatre Critics Award Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (UK)
- 1968: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Play, New York Drama Critics' CircleThe New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Best Play of the Year (U.S.), Plays and Players London Theatre Critics Award for Best New Play (UK)
- 1968: Albert's Bridge – Prix Italia
The Prix Italia is an international Italian television, radio-broadcasting and Website award. It was established in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri...
(Italy)
- 1972: Jumpers
Jumpers is a 1972 play by Tom Stoppard. It explores and satirises the field of academic philosophy, likening it to a less-than skilful competitive gymnastics display...
– Evening Standard Award for Best Play, Plays and Players London Theatre Critics Award for Best New Play (UK)
- 1974: Travesties
Travesties is a play by Tom Stoppard.The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the...
– Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year (UK)
- 1976: Travesties – Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Play, New York Critics Award for Best Play (U.S.)
- 1978: Night and Day
Night and Day is a 1978 play by Tom Stoppard. The sets and costumes were designed by Carl Toms and it ran for two years at the Phoenix Theatre in central London, UK. The lead roles of Richard Wagner and Ruth Carson were created by John Thaw and Diana Rigg, respectively.The play is post-colonial in...
– Evening Standard Award for Best Play (UK)
- 1982: The Dog It Was That Died
The Dog It Was That Died is a play by the British playwright Tom Stoppard.Written for BBC Radio in 1982, it concerns the dilemma faced by a spy over whom he actually works for. The play was also adapted for television by Stoppard, and broadcast in 1988....
– Giles Cooper Award
- 1982: The Real Thing
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
– Evening Standard Award for Best Play (UK)
- 1984: The Real Thing – Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Play, New York Critics Award for Best Foreign Play (U.S.)
- 1991: In the Native State
In The Native State is a radio play by Tom Stoppard. First broadcast by the BBC in 1991 it was later adapted by Stoppard into the stage play Indian Ink....
– Giles Cooper Award
- 1993: Arcadia
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge...
– Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Best New Play, Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year
- 1994: Arcadia – Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play (UK)
- 1997: The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...
– Evening Standard Award for Best Play (UK)
- 1998: Shakespeare in Love
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....
– Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (U.S.)
- 2000: The Real Thing – Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee of New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors. It honors the Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway, or legitimate not-for-profit theater revival of a production previously staged in New York City.It...
(U.S.)
- 2000: The Real Thing – Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play
The Tony Award for Best Revival has only been awarded since 1994. Prior to that, plays and musicals were considered together for the Tony Award for Best Revival...
(U.S.)
- 2007: The Coast of Utopia
The Coast of Utopia is a 2002 trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, written by Tom Stoppard with focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866...
– Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Play (U.S.)
- 2007: The Critics' Circle
The Critics' Circle is a professional association of British critics of dance, drama, film, music, visual arts and architecture. It was established in 1913 as an offshoot of the Society of Dramatic Critics, which had been formed six years earlier but had become inactive.For many years the Circle...
Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts (presented on 3 April 2008 at the 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...
) (UK)
- 2008: The 2008 Dan David Prize for Creative Rendering of the Past in Theatre (Israeli)
Honours
- 1978: CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
- 1997: Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...
- 2000: Order of Merit
The Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
- 2000: Honorary doctorate from Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
- 2000: Honorary degree from Cambridge University
- 2009: Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
Theatre
- 1964: A Walk on the Water
- 1965: The Gamblers, based on the novel The Gambler
The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. The novella reflects Dostoyevsky's own addiction to roulette, which was in more ways than one the inspiration for the book: Dostoyevsky completed the novella under a...
by Dostoevsky
- 1966: Tango, adapted from Sławomir Mrożek's play and Nicholas Bethell translation, premiered at the Aldwych Theatre
The Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
- 1966: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
- 1968: Enter a Free Man
Enter a Free Man is a play by Tom Stoppard that follows the story of an unsuccessful inventor named George Riley. The play was first performed on March 28, 1968 at the St. Martin's Theatre. It was directed by Frith Banbury and starred Michael Hordern...
. Developed from A Walk on the Water. First performed 28 March 1968.
- 1968: The Real Inspector Hound
The Real Inspector Hound is a short, one-act play by Tom Stoppard. The plot follows two theatre critics named Moon and Birdboot who are watching a ludicrous setup of a country house murder mystery, in the style of a whodunit...
- 1969: Albert's Bridge premiered at St. Mary's Hall in Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
- 1969: If You're Glad I'll Be Frank premiered at St. Mary's Hall in Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
- 1970: After Magritte
After Magritte is a surreal comedy written by Tom Stoppard in 1970. It was first performed at the Green Banana Restaurant in London.-Synopsis:...
frequently performed as a companion piece to The Real Inspector Hound
- 1971: Dogg's Our Pet premiered at Almost Free Theatre
- 1972: Jumpers
Jumpers is a 1972 play by Tom Stoppard. It explores and satirises the field of academic philosophy, likening it to a less-than skilful competitive gymnastics display...
- 1972: Artist Descending a Staircase
Artist Descending a Staircase is Tom Stoppard's 1972 radio play that centers around a murder mystery involving an artist who dies from falling down a set of stairs . The play is a humorous exploration of the meaning and purpose of art...
- 1974: Travesties
Travesties is a play by Tom Stoppard.The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the...
- 1976: Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land
Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land is a pair of two 1976 Tom Stoppard plays that are always performed together. New-Found-Land interrupts the two parts of Dirty Linen...
first performed on 6 April 1976
- 1977: Every Good Boy Deserves Favour was written at the request of André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
. The play calls for full orchestra
- 1978: Night and Day
Night and Day is a 1978 play by Tom Stoppard. The sets and costumes were designed by Carl Toms and it ran for two years at the Phoenix Theatre in central London, UK. The lead roles of Richard Wagner and Ruth Carson were created by John Thaw and Diana Rigg, respectively.The play is post-colonial in...
- 1979: Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth
Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth are two plays by Tom Stoppard, written to be performed together. This was not the first time that Stoppard had made use of Shakespearian texts in his own plays or even the first time he had used Hamlet although the context is far different from that of his earlier...
– two plays written to be performed together.
- 1979: 15-Minute Hamlet
15-Minute Hamlet is a comedic abridgement of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, written by Tom Stoppard.The play, an excerpt from Dogg's Hamlet, condenses the original Hamlet, including all the best-known scenes, into approximately 13 minutes of on-stage action...
- 1979: Undiscovered Country
Undiscovered Country is a 1979 Tom Stoppard play first produced at the Olivier Theatre in London. The play is an adaptation of Das Weite Land by the Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler, which focuses on 1890s Viennese society, demonstrating the effects of upper class codes of behavior on human...
– an adaptation of Das Weite Land by the Austrian playwright Arthur SchnitzlerDr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
- 1981: On the Razzle
On the Razzle is a play by Tom Stoppard. It is an adaptation of the Viennese play Einen Jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy, which previously was adapted twice by Thornton Wilder...
based on Einen Jux will er sich machenEinen Jux will er sich machen , , is a three-act musical play, designated as a Posse mit Gesang, by Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy first performed at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 10 March 1842...
by Johann NestroyJohann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath...
- 1982: The Real Thing
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....
- 1983: English libretto for The Love for Three Oranges. Original opera by Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
.
- 1984: Rough Crossing
Rough Crossing is a 1984 comedic play by British playwright Tom Stoppard, "freely adapted from Ferenc Molnár's Play at the Castle." Set on board the S.S...
based on Play at the Castle by Ferenc MolnárLanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...
- 1986: Dalliance
"Dalliance," by Tom Stoppard is based on the play "Liebelei," by Arthur Schnitzler. "Dalliance" was first performed at the Lyttelton Theatre, London, on May 27, 1986.-Plot summary:...
An adaptation of Arthur SchnitzlerDr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...
's Liebelei
- 1987: Largo Desolato
Largo desolato is a play by Václav Havel. It is about a political writer, Leopold Nettles , who fears being sent back into prison. During the play, Leopold faces extreme pressure from his wife, two members of what appears to be the secret police, among others...
, translation of a play by Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
- 1988: Hapgood
Hapgood is a play by Tom Stoppard, first produced in 1988. It is mainly about espionage, focusing on a British female spymaster and her juggling of career and motherhood...
- 1993: Arcadia
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge...
- 1995: Indian Ink
Indian Ink is a 1995 play by Tom Stoppard , based on his 1991 radio play In the Native State. Indian Ink had its first performance at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, and opened at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on February 27, 1995. The production was directed by Peter Wood and designed by Carl...
– based on Stoppard's radio play In The Native State
- 1997: The Invention of Love
The Invention of Love is a 1997 play by Tom Stoppard portraying the life of poet A.E. Housman, focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play is written from the viewpoint of Housman dealing with his memories towards the end of his life and contains many...
- 1997: The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
– translation of the play by Anton ChekhovAnton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
- 2002: The Coast of Utopia
The Coast of Utopia is a 2002 trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage, written by Tom Stoppard with focus on the philosophical debates in pre-revolution Russia between 1833 and 1866...
is a trilogy of plays: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage
- 2004: Enrico IV
Henry IV is a play by Luigi Pirandello. A study on madness with comic and tragic sides, it has been translated into English by Tom Stoppard and others...
(Henry IV) – translation of the Italian play by Luigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
First presented at the Donmar TheatreDonmar Warehouse is a small not-for-profit theatre in the Covent Garden area of London, with a capacity of 251.-About:Under the artistic leadership of Michael Grandage, the theatre has presented some of London’s most memorable award-winning theatrical experiences, as well as garnered critical...
, London, in April 2004
- 2006: Rock 'n' Roll
Rock 'n' Roll is a play by British playwright Tom Stoppard that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2006.-Plot summary:The play is concerned with the significance of rock and roll in the emergence of the socialist movement in Eastern Bloc Czechoslovakia between the Prague Spring of...
— first public performance 3 June 2006 preview at the Royal Court TheatreThe Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
.
- 2010: The Laws of War — contributor to a collaborative piece for one-night benefit performance in support of Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
.
Original works for radio
- 1964: The Dissolution of Dominic Boot
- 1964: 'M' is for Moon Amongst Other Things
- 1965: A Separate Peace – first performed, on British television, August 1966
- 1966: If You’re Glad I’ll be Frank
- 1967: Albert's Bridge
- 1968: Where Are They Now?, written for schools radio
- 1972: Artist Descending a Staircase
Artist Descending a Staircase is Tom Stoppard's 1972 radio play that centers around a murder mystery involving an artist who dies from falling down a set of stairs . The play is a humorous exploration of the meaning and purpose of art...
- 1982: The Dog It Was That Died
The Dog It Was That Died is a play by the British playwright Tom Stoppard.Written for BBC Radio in 1982, it concerns the dilemma faced by a spy over whom he actually works for. The play was also adapted for television by Stoppard, and broadcast in 1988....
- 1991: In the Native State
In The Native State is a radio play by Tom Stoppard. First broadcast by the BBC in 1991 it was later adapted by Stoppard into the stage play Indian Ink....
later expanded to become the stage play Indian Ink (1995)
- 2007: On Dover Beach
Television plays
- A Separate Peace
- Teeth
- Another Moon Called Earth (containing some dialogue and situations later incorporated into Jumpers
Jumpers is a 1972 play by Tom Stoppard. It explores and satirises the field of academic philosophy, likening it to a less-than skilful competitive gymnastics display...
)
- Neutral Ground (a loose adaptation of Sophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
' PhiloctetesPhiloctetes or Philocthetes according to Greek mythology, the son of King Poeas of Meliboea in Thessaly. He was a Greek hero, famed as an archer, and was a participant in the Trojan War. He was the subject of at least two plays by Sophocles, one of which is named after him, and one each by both...
)
- Professional Foul
- Squaring the Circle
Film and television adaptation of plays
- 1975: Three Men in a Boat
Three Men in a Boat ,The Penguin edition punctuates the title differently: Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog! published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K...
adaptation of Jerome K. JeromeJerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the humorous travelogue Three Men in a Boat.Jerome was born in Caldmore, Walsall, England, and was brought up in poverty in London...
's novel for BBC Television
- 1975: The Boundary co-authored by Clive Exton
Clive Exton was a British television and film screenwriter, sometime playwright, and former actor. He is best known for his scripts of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster, and Rosemary & Thyme.-Early career:He was born Clive Jack Montague Brooks in Islington, London,...
, for the BBC
- 1977: Professional Foul
Professional Foul is a play written by Czech-born, British playwright Tom Stoppard. It was first published in 1977 and was filmed for BBC television and broadcast in September of the same year....
- 1985: Brazil
Brazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...
co-authored with Terry GilliamTerrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
and Charles McKeownCharles McKeown is a British actor and writer, perhaps best known for his collaborations with Terry Gilliam. The two met while shooting Monty Python's Life of Brian, while McKeown was doing bit parts in the film.-Screenwriting career:...
, script nominated for an Academy AwardAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
- 1987: Empire of the Sun
Empire of the Sun is a 1987 American coming of age war film based on J. G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Steven Spielberg directed the film, which stars Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, and Nigel Havers...
(First draft of the screenplay)
- 1990: The Russia House
The Russia House is an American spy drama, based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré. It was directed by Fred Schepisi, and starred Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, with Roy Scheider, James Fox, John Mahoney, and Klaus Maria Brandauer in supporting roles.It was filmed on location in...
screenplay for the 1990 film of the John Le CarreDavid John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
Novel
- 1990: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a 1990 film written and directed by Tom Stoppard based on his play of the same name. Like the play, the film depicts two minor characters from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who find themselves on the road to Elsinore Castle...
– won the Golden LionIl Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
- 1997: Bad Day on the Block
Bad Day on the Block is a 1997 psychological thriller film directed by Craig R. Baxley. It stars Charlie Sheen, Sarah Jessica Parker, Albert Brooks, Pete Postlethwaite and Mare Winningham. Although intended to be released in theaters, it was ultimately distributed direct-to-video...
- 1998: Shakespeare in Love
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....
co-authored with Marc NormanMarc Norman is an American screenwriter.He won, with Tom Stoppard the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, in the 71st Academy Awards of 1998, for his script of Shakespeare in Love; he also shared in the Best Picture Oscar for the film as co-producer...
, script won an Academy AwardAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
- 1998: Poodle Springs
Poodle Springs is the eighth Philip Marlowe novel. It was started in 1958 by Raymond Chandler, who left it unfinished at his death in 1959. The four chapters he had completed, which bore the working title "The Poodle Springs Story", were subsequently published in Raymond Chandler Speaking , a...
teleplay adaptation of the novel by Robert B. ParkerRobert Brown Parker was an American crime writer. His most famous works were the novels about the private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the late 1980s; a series of TV movies based on the character were also...
and Raymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
- 2001: Enigma
Enigma is a 2001 British film about the Enigma codebreakers of Bletchley Park in World War II. The film, directed by Michael Apted, stars Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet. The film's screenplay was by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel Enigma by Robert Harris...
film screenplay of the Robert HarrisRobert Dennis Harris is an English novelist. He is a former journalist and BBC television reporter.-Early life:Born in Nottingham, Harris spent his childhood in a small rented house on a Nottingham council estate. His ambition to become a writer arose at an early age, from visits to the local...
novel
- 2005: The Golden Compass a draft screenplay, subsequently rejected
Further reading
- Bloom, Harold, ed. Tom Stoppard Bloom's Major Dramatists. New York: Chelsea House, 2003.
- Cahn, Victor L. Beyond Absurdity: The Plays of Tom Stoppard. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press is a publishing house under the operation and oversight of Fairleigh Dickinson University, the largest private university in New Jersey, USA. FDU Press was established in 1967 by the university's founder Peter Sammartino, in cooperation with the publisher...
, 1979.
- Corballis, Richard. Stoppard. The Mystery and the Clockwork Oxford, New York, 1984.
- Delaney, Paul. Tom Stoppard: The Moral Vision of the Plays London, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990.
- Fleming, John. Stoppard's Theater: Finding Order Amid Chaos Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.
- Hunter, Jim. About Stoppard: The Playwright and the Wor. London: Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
, 2005.
- Londré, Felicia Hardison. Tom Stoppard Modern Literature Series. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981.
- Stoppard, Tom & Paul Delaney, ed. Tom Stoppard in conversation University of Michigan Press, 1994.
- Südkamp, Holger. Tom Stoppard's Biographical Drama. Trier: WVT, 2008.
External links
- British Council Profile. Accessed 2011-01-02
- BBC John Tusa
Sir John Tusa is a British arts administrator, and radio and television journalist. From 1980 to 1986 he was a main presenter of BBC 2's Newsnight programme. From 1995 until 2007 he was managing director of the City of London's Barbican Arts Centre...
Interview (Audio 43 mins). With transcript. BBC profile. Accessed 2011-01-02
Articles
- "Czechs and thugs and rock’n’roll" The Times Interview (11 June 2006) Accessed 2010-02-19
- New York Times Magazine article, "Playing with ideas" 26 November 2006 Accessed 2010-02-19
- Nigel Farndale, "Sir Tom Stoppard interview", Daily Telegraph (19 Jan 2010) Accessed 2010-02-19
- Ciar Byrne, "Tom Stoppard: The true voice of old England", The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
(14 March 2008) Accessed 2010-02-19
- Ian Burrell, "Stoppard back on the BBC after an interval of three decades", The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
(29 July 2010) Accessed 2010-07-29
Work