Biography
© simonkanephotography.co.uk 2008
Simon Stephens is an Olivier-award winning playwright. His work for the Royal Exchange includes PUNK ROCK (2009/10, co-production with the Lyric Hammersmith and National Tour), ON THE SHORE OF THE WIDE WORLD (2007, co-production with the National Theatre, Olivier Award for Best New Play) and PORT (2001, Pearson Award for Best Play). He was Pearson Playwright in Residence at the theatre between 2000 and 2001.
Other plays include WASTWATER (2011, Royal Court), the co-authored A THOUSAND STARS EXPLODE IN THE SKY (2010, Lyric Hammersmith), MARINE PARADE, a play with songs written by Mark Eotze (2010 Animalink for the Brighton Festival), SEAWALL (2009, Bush Theatre and Traverse), HARPER REGAN (2008, National Theatre), PORNOGRAPHY (2008, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hannover, Tricycle Theatre and Birmingham Rep), MOTORTOWN (2006, Royal Court), COUNTRY MUSIC (2004, Royal Court), HERONS (2001, Royal Court) and BLUEBIRD (1998, Royal Court).
Simon was Arts Council Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court in 2000. His work for television includes a short film adaptation of PORNOGRAPHY for Coming Up (Channel 4) and DIVE written with Dominic Savage (Granada/BBC). He is also Artistic Associate at the Lyric Hammersmith.
To read Simon’s speech for the launch of the 2011 prize, click here.
Interview
How does it feel to see your work in front of on audience for the first time?
There is nothing, for me, quite so particularly terrifying as waiting to watch a play performed in front of an audience for the first time. It’s awful. I would like to actively discourage ANYBODY from writing for theatre just so they might avoid this excruciating experience. I always have a quiet mull on just how highly promoted I could have been by now if only I’d stayed working for Safeways. I’d probably be a regional manager or something. Maybe even have a company car. Something I might have spent years working on as a writer, months working on with a director and weeks rehearsing with a company of trusted, befriended, actors is on the point of being exposed and within the space of hours could be left in tatters.
I normally do a fair amount of hiding. I normally start smoking again after months of not. I normally drink too much coffee and then panic about needing to go to the toilet after twenty minutes.
Eventually I’m normally persuaded to take my seat. I look around a room of strangers. I remain, even after ten years of doing this, mystified that anybody other than my Mum would want to see my plays but often they seem to.
And then the play starts.
Plays don’t exist properly until they’re produced. A play which is never performed is like a recipe which is never cooked. The only reason I continue doing this job is because the magic of watching those first few moments of reception remains more euphoric than the anxiety caused by anticipating them. When you feel the audience get their eye in and settle into your world it is remarkable. To hear words that you imagined, sometimes in a hasty, half thought through, intuitive moment months or years before spoken by an actor of commitment and truth and listened to by an audience that wants to hear it, it is spellbinding. It’s like pointing out something wondrous that until then only you have seen, to a room full of strangers and feeling them all turn at once and share your sense of wonder. And when they laugh at the bits you hoped they’d laugh at or the moments you never realised they would, or when they watch with still attention during the moments you hoped would still them, well that’s like confirmation that you’re not insane. It suggests for a moment that other people might see the world in the way that you do.
It’s an addictive feeling. It’s why I keep coming back.
