Irene Coates (née Gregory; 23 March 192518 June 2019) was an English playwright, poet, painter, feminist and environmentalist. She is the author of 14 plays and four books, including ''Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf?: A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf''.

Biography

Irene Coates grew up in a Bohemian family in London. In the 1940s she ran the Cambridge Drama Centre. She wrote 14 plays between 1961 and 1981, which were produced among others by the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...

and performed 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 ...

. She migrated to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

in 1982 and was Writer in Residence (drama) at Nepean in 1998. She was the sister-in-law and aunt respectively of the painters

Ivon Hitchens Ivon Hitchens (born London, 3 March 1893 – 29 August 1979) was an English painter who started exhibiting during the 1920s. He became part of the 'London Group' of artists and exhibited with them during the 1930s. His house was bombed in 1940 d ...

and

John Hitchens John Hitchens (born 1940) is an English painter. His work is influenced by the landscape of the South Downs and his main subject area is the countryside of West Sussex, England. He also spent extended periods working in North Wales and North West ...

Works

Books

Plays

* ''The Wideawakes'' (1965) * ''The Space is Mine'' * ''Self Service''

Films

* ''Irene Coates on Seeing''

References

External links

Irene Coates on Seeing
1925 births 2019 deaths 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights People from Chichester English women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English women writers English emigrants to Australia {{UK-playwright-stub