Stephen Jeffreys

Back | Genres | Bibliography | Prizes and awards | Contact details | Printer-friendly version

	Photo: © Sheila Burnett

Biography

Stephen Jeffreys was born in London. His play, Like Dolls or Angels (1977), won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award at the National Student Drama Festival. He helped to set up Pocket Theatre Cumbria, for whom he wrote a number of plays, including an adaptation of Dickens' Hard Times in 1982. The play Carmen 1936 won an Edinburgh Fringe Festival Fringe First in 1984. Valued Friends (1990) premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in 1989. For some years, he was Literary Associate at the Royal Court Theatre.

His other plays include The Clink (1999), set in Elizabethan London, originally produced by Paines Plough (for whom he was Writer in Residence) at the Riverside Studio in London, and The Libertine (1994) about the 17th-century poet John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, first staged at the Royal Court Theatre. The Libertine was recently released as a film starring Johnny Depp, for which Stephen Jeffreys wrote the screenplay. A Going Concern (1993) was first staged at the Hampstead Theatre in London. He adapted Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew (1992) for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1992.

I Just Stopped By to See The Man (2000) was first staged at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, and subsequently at Steppenwolf, Chicago. Interruptions premiered at UC Davis, California, in 2001. 

His latest play is Lost Land which premiered in the Steppenwolf, Chicago, in 2005. The Convict's Opera (2009) has been adapted from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.

Stephen Jeffreys is married to the director Annable Arden and has two sons. He is an experienced teacher and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary, The Play's the Thing, teaching playwrights.

Top of page

Genres (in alphabetical order)

Drama

Bibliography

Mobile 4   Samuel French, 1979

Valued Friends   Samuel French, 1990

A Jovial Crew/Richard Brome   (adaptation)   Warner Chappell Plays, 1992

A Going Concern   Nick Hern, 1993

The Libertine   Nick Hern, 1994

The Clink   Nick Hern, 1999

I Just Stopped By to See the Man   Nick Hern, 2000

The Convict's Opera   Nick Hern, 2009

Read about books by Stephen Jeffreys at encompassculture.com - the British Council's book database and global online book club

Buy books by Stephen Jeffreys at Amazon.co.uk

Top of page

Prizes and awards

1977   Sunday Times Playwriting Award   Like Dolls or Angels

1978   Edinburgh Festival Fringe First   Mobile 4

1984   Edinburgh Festival Fringe First   Carmen 1936

1989   Evening Standard Award for most promising playwright   Valued Friends

Top of page

Contact information

Publisher (General enquiries) Nick Hern Books Ltd The Glasshouse 49a Goldhawk Road London  W12 8QP England Tel: +44 (0)20 8749 4953 Fax: +44 (0)20 8735 0250 E-mail: info@nickhernbooks.demon.co.uk http://www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Top of page