Diane Samuels was born and raised in Liverpool. She currently lives in London where she has been working as a playwright and author since the early 1990s. She enjoys collaborating across art forms, with composers, musicians, visual artists, dance specialists, and draws on relationships with scientists, historians, psychotherapists, medical practitioners, healers to expand the scope of her practice and work. She also works as a teacher/facilitator of creative writing to all ages.
Kindertransport won the Verity Bargate and Meyer-Whitworth Awards, and was first produced by Soho Theatre Company in 1993. It has been translated into many languages, performed in the West End, Off Broadway and all over the world, revived in 2007 in the UK by Shared Experience Theatre Company. Now studied for A and A/S Level and a set text for English Literature GCSE. Other plays include The True-Life Fiction of Mata Hari, Watford Palace Theatre, 2002; Cinderella’s Daughter, Trestle Theatre tour, 2005; and 3 Sisters on Hope Street (with actress Tracy-Ann Oberman), after Chekhov, co-produced by Liverpool Everyman/Playhouse and Hampstead Theatres, 2008. The Arrest of Rosa Gold, readings at National Theatre Studio, 2010, and Jewish Museum, 2012. End of Romance, performed reading as part of the Mary Shelley Festival, Bournemouth, 2011.
For younger audiences, plays include One Hundred Million Footsteps for Quicksilver Theatre Company; Chalk Circle, Frankie’s Monster and How to Beat a Giant at the Unicorn Theatre.
For BBC radio, plays include Swine, Doctor Y, Watch Out for Mister Stork, Hen Party, Tiger Wings, five part serial for Woman’s Hour, and Psyche.
She has wide experience of teaching creative writing, lecturing at the universities of Birmingham, Reading, Oxford, Goldsmiths’ and running workshops for Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education, Alternatives, Theatre Royal Haymarket and the National Gallery. She was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Westminster, 2008 to 2011, and has been visiting lecturer at Regent’s College, London, from 2013. She runs a regular writers’ group and is writer-in-residence at Grafton Primary School, Islington, North London.
Diane was one of a creative team awarded a Science on Stage and Screen Award by the Wellcome Trust in 2001 leading to PUSH, The People Show Studios, 2003. Her short story, Rope, broadcast as one of the 2002 winners of BBC Radio 4’s online short story competition. Writer and presenter Inter-Rail Postcards, BBC Radio 3. Interactive writing installation, In Your Own Words for Battersea Arts Centre’s One on One Festival, 2011. As Pearson Creative Research Fellow 2004/5 at the British Library, completed research into magic, booklet A Writer’s Magic Notebook, pub. 2006.
Recently, Diane has written Persephone (A Love Story), with composer Maurice Chernick, Arts Council England funding for staged readings at Rosemary Branch theatre, 2013; and The A-Z of Mrs P, music/lyrics by Gwyneth Herbert, world premiere Southwark Playhouse, 2014.
Diane is also writing, with Maurice Chernick, a new oratorio with spoken word, Song of Dina that gives voice to the invisibled daughter of biblical patriarch Jacob to be given a public presentation of work in progress at JW3 in April 2016.
Also, in development are: The Rhythm Method with Gwyneth Herbert, probing the ins and outs of contraception, recipient of a Wellcome Trust award; and A Waltz & a Prayer exploring marriage, faith, miracles and the possible sainthood of Mother Cornelia Connelly.