Artist Profile
Simon Stephens is an award-winning playwright.
His early work at the Royal Court includes BLUEBIRD (1998); HERONS (2001), COUNTRY MUSIC (2004) and MOTORTOWN (2006). In 2008 his play HARPER REGAN opened at the National Theatre, and SEA WALL, starring Andrew Scott, played at the Bush. Simon then had success with his plays PORNOGRAPHY (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hanover, 2007 and Edinburgh Festival / Birmingham Rep, 2008 and Tricycle Theatre, 2009) and PUNK ROCK (Lyric Hammersmith / Manchester Royal Exchange, 2009) which won the 2009 Manchester Evening News Award for Best Production. In 2011, I AM THE WIND, an adaptation from Jon Fosse’s original, opened at the Young Vic. 2012 saw THREE KINGDOMS performed in London, Tallinn and Munich, MORNING at the Lyric Theatre, and a new version of Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE at the Young Vic which subsequently transferred to the Duke of York’s Theatre in 2013.
His adaption of Mark Haddon’s novel THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME won the Oliver and Tony Awards for Best New Play (National Theatre, 2012; Apollo Theatre, 2013; Gielgud, 2014 – present; Barrymore Theatre in Broadway, 2015; international tour 2017-2018). In 2014 Simon premiered CARMEN DISRUPTION at Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, which subsequently opened at the Almeida Theatre in London in 2015, and BIRDLAND at the Royal Court. His adaptation of Chekhov’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD also opened at the Young Vic in 2014. In 2015, HEISENBERG opened at MTC in New York and transferred to the Friedman in 2016 and opened in the West End in 2017; THE FUNFAIR, Simon’s new version of Ödön von Horváth’s KASIMIR AND KAROLINE, opened at Home Theatre in Manchester; and SONG FROM FAR AWAY, directed by award-winning Belgian director Ivo van Hove, received its UK premiere at the Young Vic. In 2016, his version of Brecht and Weill’s THE THREEPENNY OPERA opened at the National, and his original play RAGE opened at Thalia Theatre, Hamburg. 2017 saw the openings of NUCLEAR WAR at the Royal Court, his English language version of OBSESSION at the Barbican, FATHERLAND at the Royal Exchange for the Manchester International Festival, and his new adaptation of THE SEAGULL at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Simon is Artistic Associate at the Lyric Theatre and Associate Playwright at the Royal Court. He was also on the board for Paines Plough between 2009 and 2014, and was a Writers’ Tutor for the Young Writers’ Programme at the Royal Court between 2001 and 2005.