David Byrne (b. 1983 in

Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevenage w ...

) is a British

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

and formerly the artistic director of the

New Diorama Theatre The New Diorama Theatre is an eighty-seat theatre near Regent's Park in the London Borough of Camden, opened in 2010. The theatre received two Peter Brook awards during the first two years of its programming.

in Camden, London, and currently Artistic Director of the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...

. Byrne has also written for radio and television. Byrne has won the

Writers' Guild of Great Britain The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG). History The u ...

and the List Awards for Drama, a Les Enfants Terribles Prize and the London Off West End Award for Best Artistic Director. Byrne's adaptation of ''

Down and Out in Paris and London ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-cla ...

'' sold out at the

Edinburgh Festival __NOTOC__ This is a list of Arts festival, arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the ...

in 2015 and received multiple four and five star reviews before transferring to London. The New Diorama Theatre, under Byrne's artistic directorship, has won two Empty Space Peter Brook Awards. At New Diorama, Byrne developed relationships throughout the small and emergent theatre communities, using the theatre's resources to offer support for the development of new and challenging work, and new voices. In July 2023, it was announced that David Byrne would assume the role of Artistic Director of The English Stage Company/Royal Court in early 2024. In July 2024, Byrne received an honorary doctorate from the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

References

Living people 1983 births English dramatists and playwrights {{UK-playwright-stub