Gary Owen
Writer
Gary’s most recent plays include a radical reworking of The Cherry Orchard for Sherman Theatre, which translated the action of the play to 1980s Pembrokeshire, at the beginning of the Thatcher era, and Killology, a co-production between Sherman Theatre and the Royal Court and directed by Rachel O’Riordan, which won Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre at the 2018 Olivier Awards.
Previously he’s written Violence and Son for the Royal Court. Violence and Son was nominated for an Olivier in 2016, and its star David Moorst won Best Emerging Talent at the Evening Standard Awards and Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics’ Circle Awards for his performance as Liam. In 2015, he wrote Iphigenia in Splott which was directed by Rachel O’Riordan for Sherman Theatre. After two sell-out runs at the Sherman, Iphigenia played the Edinburgh Festival as a British Council showcase pick, ran for a month at the National Theatre in London, toured the UK, played at the FIND festival at Thomas Ostermeier’s Schaubühne Theatre in Berlin and at the E59E Theater in Manhattan, where it was a New York Times pick of the week. Iphigenia in Splott won the UK Theatre Best New Play award and the James Tait Black Prize for Drama, and earned its lead, Sophie Melville, a Stage Award for Acting Excellence and an Evening Standard Award nomination for Best Actress.
Gary’s earlier work includes: Crazy Gary’s Mobile Disco, The Shadow Of A Boy (winner George Devine and Meyer Whitworth awards), The Drowned World (winner Fringe First and Pearson Best Play awards), Ghost City, Amgen, We That Are Left, Blackthorn, Mrs Reynolds and the Ruffian (adapted by Meic Povey as Mrs Reynolds a’r Cena Bach), Perfect Match, Free Folk, and Love Steals Us From Loneliness. He’s adapted Spring Awakening and La Ronde for RWCMD, and for children written Pen-Blwydd Poenus Pete and Hartleby, Ooglemoore and Jeramee, a collaboration with Tim Crouch. He is a trustee of Sherman Theatre, and part of the advisory panel of Grand Ambition at the Swansea Grand. His plays have been translated into more than a dozen languages, produced all over the world, and are published by Bloomsbury.
