| Leo Butler | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1974 Sheffield, England |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Nationality | British |
| Notable work(s) | Redundant (2001) Lucky Dog (2004) I'll Be The Devil (2008) Faces In The Crowd(2008) |
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Leo Butler (b. Sheffield, 1974) is a British playwright. He graduated from the Royal Court's young writers' scheme.[1] He is active since 2000, when he was described as one of the "Great British Hopes".[2] His plays have been staged, among others, by the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.[3] A collective edition of his plays has been published in 2008 by A & C Black.[4] Since 2006 he has also been Playwriting Tutor for the prestigious Royal Court Young Writers Programme.
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Having been born and brought up in Sheffield he moved to London to attend Rose Bruford College, before the start of his career as a playwright. His first play Made Of Stone was performed in the Young Writers Festival at Royal Court in 2000. All his plays come from a starting image and this was two brothers standing by their fathers grave he has called Made of Stone his most personal play and his 'love letter' to Sheffield.[4]
Redundant contained the first ever reference in theatre to Osama bin Laden where a character said that the whole country needed to be bombed by him to teach us all what suffering was. The play premiered at Royal Court on the 22nd September 2001 as a darkly comic examination of social poverty and its effects on the life of a seventeen year old girl, but the events of September 11th overshadowed the play's intended themes, with the references to Osama bin Laden receiving gasps from the audience. It has since been regarded as a greater play than was originally thought.
Lucky Dog and The Early Bird received praise from the critics in 2004 and 2006. Both plays shared themes of familial despair, and saw the playwright move away from the stark naturalism of their predecessors.
I'll Be The Devil was commissioned by the RSC to be written in response to The Tempest, set in rural Ireland during the 18th Century, it received mixed reviews, many of which took exception to the play's relentless profanity and violence. Some, however, praised the piece for its unflinching portrayal of the violence and madness of military occupation. It premiered in 2008 and was the first time one of his plays was first performed in a major London theatre asides Royal Court.
That same year, his credit crunch themed play Faces In The Crowd was performed in the upstairs Jerwood Theatre at the Royal Court, and received generally good reviews for its portrayal of a couple who are torn apart by a mountain of debt, and for the bravery of its lead actors who spent much of their on-stage time in the nude.
More recently, he co-wrote the book and music for A Separate Reality: A Rock Opera with Dan Persad, which was performed as part of the Royal Court's Rough Cuts 2011 season.
He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film Self Made directed by Gillian Wearing, which premiered at the London Film Festival in 2010.
He lives in London with his wife and daughter.