HELEN EDMUNDSON

Helen Edmundson’s first play, Flying, was presented at the National Theatre Studio in 1990. In 1992, she adapted Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for Shared Experience, for whom she also adapted The Mill on the Floss in 1994. Both won awards – the TMA and the Time Out Awards respectively – and both productions were twice revived and extensively toured. Shared Experience also staged the original adaptation of War and Peace at the National Theatre in 1996, and toured her adaptations of Mary Webb’s Gone to Earth in 2004, Euripides’ Orestes in 2006, the two-part version of War and Peace in 2008 and her original play Mary Shelley in 2012. Her play The Clearing was first staged at the Bush Theatre in 1993, winning John Whiting and Time Out Awards, and Mother Teresa is Dead was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 2002. Her adaptation of Jamila Gavin’s Coram Boy premiered at the National Theatre to critical acclaim in 2005, receiving a Time Out Award. It was subsequently revived in 2006, and produced on Broadway in 2007. She adapted Calderón’s Life is a Dream for the Donmar Warehouse in 2009, and her play The Heresy of Love was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012.