Mark Ravenhill
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Mark Ravenhill | |
---|---|
Born | 1966 (age 57–58) Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England |
Occupation | Playwright, actor, journalist |
Nationality | British |
Mark Ravenhill (born 7 June 1966) is an English playwright, actor and journalist.
Ravenhill is one of the most widely performed playwrights in British theatre of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries.[citation needed] His major plays include Shopping and Fucking (first performed in 1996),[1] Some Explicit Polaroids (1999), Mother Clap's Molly House (2000), The Cut (2006), Shoot Get Treasure Repeat (2007) and The Cane (2018).
In 1999 he was one of the recipients of the V Europe Prize Theatrical Realities awarded to the Royal Court Theatre[2] (with Sarah Kane, Jez Butterworth, Conor McPherson, Martin McDonagh).[3]
He made his professional acting debut in his own monologue Product, at the
Early life
Ravenhill is the elder of two sons born to Ted and Angela Ravenhill. He grew up in West Sussex, England and cultivated an early interest in theatre, putting on plays with his brother when they were eight and seven, respectively. He studied English and Drama at
Career
His first short play, Fist, gained the attention of Max Stafford-Clark, artistic director of Out of Joint Theatre Company who asked to see his next play. Ravenhill quickly finished the play that would make his name: Shopping and Fucking. It is set among a mostly young, queer group of friends and captured a generation using sex, drugs, popular culture and therapy to replace a fundamental lack of history, value and political commitment. The play toured with two successful runs at the Royal Court Theatre and then the West End, before embarking on world tours. It was one of the British plays that were picked up by German theatres to establish a new generational wave of directors, writers, and audiences.[6]
Ravenhill followed this with a series of plays that shared Shopping and Fucking's punky, gender-queer aggression, including Faust Is Dead (1997), Handbag (1998), Some Explicit Polaroids (1999). The plays did not necessarily share the attitudes of their characters and contained ironic commentary beneath the violence and intensity. Faust is Dead explored some queer post-modern ideas, with nods to Jean Baudrillard; Some Explicit Polaroids adopted some features of the 'State of the Nation Play', an epic left-wing theatre style associated with the 1970s. Each play simultaneously endorsed and critiqued the intellectual styles and movements that they were working in.[7]
Handbag was a response to
Through the 2000s, Ravenhill moved further away from naturalism, continually changing styles and forms. His play The Cut moves into Pinteresque territory, its metaphorical image of a near-future society organised around an unspecified surgical procedure (the 'cut' of the title) was an allegory of liberal authoritarianism. Shoot Get Treasure Repeat began as a series of short (usually 20-minute) plays performed over successive mornings at the
He continued to write a range of works, including a pantomime, Dick Whittington (2006), for the Barbican Theatre; a piece for, about and performed by the drag performer Bette Bourne entitled A Life in Three Acts (2009); and a series of plays for young people: Totally Over You (2003), Citizenship (2005) and Scenes from Family Life (2007).[10]
At the end of the 2000s, Ravenhill collaborated with Ramin Gray in directing his own Over There, an experimental play and performance about twins separated by the Berlin Wall for the Royal Court. He also worked in music theatre, creating libretti for
He created ITV sitcom Vicious with Gary Janetti which aired between 2013 and 2016.[12][13] and in 2014 wrote a Doctor Who audio story entitled Of Chaos Time The for Big Finish.[14]
In 2021, Ravenhill was appointed co-artistic director of the King's Head Theatre for 2022.[15] In a 2021 interview with Benjamin Yeoh, Ravenhill explained he was looking to programme more queer and LGBTQ+ work as a co-artistic director.[16]
In September 2023, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama announced that Ravenhill would be joining their teaching staff as a Visiting Lecturer and co-tutor, focusing his time on the Writing for Performance BA degree.[17]
Ben and Imo, which opens at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon on 21 February 2024, is a 'reimagined for 2024' and staged version of the 2013 radio play Imo and Ben. Set in 1953, it explores collaboration and conflict between two composers, Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst.[18][19]
Plays
This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. (February 2017) |
- Fist (1995)
- Shopping and Fucking (1996)
- Faust Is Dead (1997)
- Sleeping Around (1998)
- Handbag (1998)
- Some Explicit Polaroids (1999)
- Mother Clap's Molly House (2000)
- Feed Me (Radio Play) (2000)
- Totally Over You (2003)
- Education (2004)
- Citizenship (2005)
- Product (2005)
- The Cut (2006)
- Pool (No Water) (2006)
- Ravenhill For Breakfast (2007)
- Scenes From Family Life (2007)
- Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (2008)
- Over There (2009)
- The Experiment (2009)
- Ten Plagues - A Song Cycle(2011)
- Candide (2013)
- Ghost Story (2015)
- The Cane (2018)[20]
- The Boy in the Dress (2019)
- Ben and Imo (2024)
Opera translations
- Monteverdi(2011)
References
- ISBN 0-413-76060-X. p.1-91
- ^ "VII Edizione – Premio Europa per il Teatro". Premio Europa per il Teatro (in Italian). Retrieved 24 December 2022.
- ^ "Europe Theatre Prize - VII Edition - Reasons". archivio.premioeuropa.org. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
- ^ "The University Of Bristol". Alumni.bris.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 16 November 2007. Retrieved 6 July 2007.
- ^ Ravenhill, Mark (26 March 2008). "My near death period". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
- ^ See Dan Rebellato, Introduction, Mark Ravenhill, Shopping and Fucking: Student Edition, London: Methuen Drama, 2005, pp. v–l.
- ^ Mark Ravenhill, Plays: 1, London: Methuen, 2001.
- ^ John Freeman, New Performance/New Writing, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, p. 125.
- ^ Mark Ravenhill, Plays: 2, Methuen Drama, 2008.
- ^ Mark Ravenhill, Plays for Young People, Methuen, 2010.
- ^ London Gay Men's Chorus turns 21, The Guardian, 3 May 2012
- Hearst Magazines UK. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
- ^ Deans, Jason (5 November 2012). "Sir Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi play gay couple in Vicious ITV comedy". The Guardian. London, England. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
- ^ "188. Doctor Who: Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories – Doctor Who – the Monthly Adventures – Big Finish".
- ^ "Diane Coyle: Innovation, intangibles, inequality, sustainability and measuring beyond GDP | podcast". 31 August 2021.
- ^ "Mark Ravenhill: Making theatre, curiosity, listening and rainbow stories". 22 August 2021.
- ^ "Mark Ravenhill Joins Teaching Staff at Central". The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. 22 September 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ Ben and Imo, Royal Shakespeare Company
- ^ Britten 100: Imo and Ben, BBC Radio, June 2013
- ^ "The Cane". Royal Court. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
External links
- Biography at the Barbican homepage.
- Mark Ravenhill at the website of the British Arts Council. Author's page, incl. "critical perspective." (Compiled and written by Dr. Peter Buse, 2003.)
- Mark Ravenhill at the website of In-Yer-Face Theatre.
- Ravenhill 10. A symposium celebrating the tenth anniversary of Shopping & Fucking, The Pinter Centre for Performance and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London.
- Audio interview from OpenLearn
- Literary Encyclopedia
- Contemporary Writers, British Council
- New York Entertainment
- The Guardian
- Barbican, Mark Ravenhill
- At the Playwright Database Archived 4 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine