Black Plays: 2

Earl Lovelace is a Trinidadian novelist, journalist, playwright, and short story writer. His plays include Jestina’s Calypso, first produced by the UWI players, The New Hardware Store which won Best Play in 1981 from the Trinidad and Tobago Drama Association and The Wine of Astonishment, which also won Best Play as well as a number of awards from the Drama Association of Trinidad and Tobago. Other plays include The Dragon Can’t Dance, My Name Is Village, Pierrot Grinnard, and The Reign of Anancy.

Winsome Pinnock was born in London. Her award-winning plays include The Wind of Change (Half Moon Theatre, 1987), Leave Taking (Liverpool Playhouse Studio and National Theatre, 1988), Picture Palace (Women’s Theatre Group, 1988), A Hero’s Welcome (Women’s Playhouse Trust at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1989), A Rock in Water (Royal Court Young People’s Theatre at the Theatre Upstairs, 1989), Talking in Tongues (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1991), Mules (Clean Break Theatre Company, 1996) and One Under (Tricycle Theatre, 2005). She has also written for radio and television. She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at London Metropolitan University.

Benjamin Zephaniah was perhaps best known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults and ground-breaking performance poetry for children. Alongside his poetry he created novels and plays, wrote and performed music and had a recurring role as preacher Jeremiah Jesus in the BBC series Peaky Blinders. In his novels for young people, which include Face, Refugee Boy, Gangsta Rap and Teacher’s Dead, Zephaniah tackled vital themes that resonate as much today as they did upon their first publication.

Maria Oshodi was born in South London in 1964. her plays include The ’S’ Bend (Longman, 1986), chosen for the Young Writers’ Festival at the Royal Court Theatre, 1984; produced by the Cockpit Youth Theatre, 1985 and chosen fro the first International Festival of Young Playwrights, Interplay ‘85 held in Sydney, Australia. From Choices to Chocolate had readings at the Royal Court Studio and Riverside Studios, London in 1986 and a workshop production at Riverside Studios in 1987. Whilst studying for her degree, she wrote the screenplay Mug, which was produced by Warner Sisters as a short for Channel 4 in 1990, and Hound which was Produced by Graeae Theatre company in 1992 and later published in 2002 in their anthology of plays, ‘Graeae Plays 1’. In 1992 she graduated from Middlesex University with a 1st BA honors in Drama and English. Since then she has worked in arts development, performed, and worked for BBC Drama production as a diversity project coordinator. She founded Extant in 1997 and since 2008 she has been full-time artistic Director and CEO of the company.