Frank McGuinness is Professor of Creative Writing at University College Dublin. A world-renowned, award-winning playwright, his first great stage hit was the highly acclaimed Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme. His other plays include The Factory Girls, Innocence, Carthaginians, Mary and Lizzie, The Bread Man, The Bird Sanctuary, Mutabilitie, Someone Who’ll Watch over Me, Dolly West’s Kitchen, Gates of Gold, Speaking Like Magpies, There Came a Gypsy Riding, Greta Garbo Came to Donegal, Crocodile, The Match Box, The Hanging Gardens, and a musical play Donegal (with music by Kevin Doherty). Adaptations of classic plays include Lorca’s Yerma; Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya; Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera and The Caucasian Chalk Circle; Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, A Doll’s House, Peer Gynt, The Lady from the Sea, John Gabriel Borkman, Ghosts, The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm; Sophocles’ Electra, Oedipus and Thebans; Ostrovsky’s The Storm; Strindberg’s Miss Julie; Euripides’ Hecuba and Helen; Racine’s Phaedra; Molina’s Damned by Despair; and dramatisations of James Joyce’s The Dead and Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Television screenplays include Scout, The Hen House, Talk of Angels, Dancing at Lughnasa, A Short Stay in Switzerland and A Song for Jenny.
Awards include:
London Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, Harvey’s Best Play Award, Cheltenham Literary Prize Plays and Players Award, Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, London Fringe Award, New York Critics’ Circle Award, Writers’ Guild Award for Best Play, Best Revival Tony Award, Outer Critics’ Award, Prix de l’Intervision and Prix de l’Art Critique at the Prague International Television Awards.
His first novel, Arimathea, was published by Brandon/The O’Brien Press in 2013.