Polly Stenham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Polly Stenham (born 1987) is an award-winning English playwright.

1 Career
2 Background
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Career

Her debut play That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in April 2007 in a production by Jeremy Herrin for which she won both the Evening Standard's 2007 Charles Wintour Award, and the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, as well as the 2007 Best New Play TMA Award. Stenham had attended the Royal Court's Young Writers Programme in 2005.

That Face portrays an affluent family in freefall. Mia at boarding school has access to Martha’s drugs. Henry has dropped out of school. Martha, their mother, controls their lives — a darkly comic exploration of children who become parents to their parents.^[1]

The play received effusive praise from reviewers, with Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph making the following comment:

"This is one of the most astonishing debuts I have seen in more than 30 years of theatre reviewing. Its author, Polly Stenham, a graduate of the Royal Court's Young Writers Programme, is 20 now, just 19 when she wrote a play that sent me reeling into the night... In every respect this is a remarkable and unforgettable piece of theatre."

That Face will be revived at the Duke of York's Theatre previewing from 1 May 2008, starring Lindsay Duncan, Hannah Murray, Matt Smith, Catherine Steadman and Julian Wadham, again directed by Jeremy Herrin and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Tulchin/Bartner, Eric Abraham and Jamie Hendry.

Stenham is adapting it for the screen ^[2]. She is also writing a second play under commission to the Royal Court^[3], and is part of the writing team on E4's Skins^[4].

She represented the Royal Court at the 2007 Latitude Festival.

[edit] Background

Stenham's father, Anthony 'Cob' Stenham, a well-known City businessman, died in 2006.

She was educated at Wycombe Abbey and Rugby. After completing her A-Levels, she spent a gap year travelling during which time she also worked for the Ambassador Theatre Group and the Arcola Theatre. She began a degree at UCL but abandoned her place to work on That Face.