Diane Samuels
Diane Samuels was born and raised in Liverpool. She currently lives in London where she has been working as a playwright and author since the early 1990s. She enjoys collaborating across art forms, with composers, musicians, visual artists, dance specialists and draws on relationships with scientists, historians, psychotherapists, medical practitioners, healers to expand the scope of her practice and work. She also works as a teacher/facilitator of creative writing to all ages.
KINDERTRANSPORT won the Verity Bargate and Meyer-Whitworth Awards, and was first produced by Soho Theatre Company in 1993. Subsequently it has been translated into many languages, performed in the West End, Off Broadway and all over the world. Her other plays include THE TRUE-LIFE FICTION OF MATA HARI, Palace Theatre, Watford, 2002; CINDERELLA'S DAUGHTER, Trestle Theatre tour, 2005; "3 SISTERS ON HOPE STREET" (with T.A. Oberman), Liverpool Everyman and Hampstead Theatre, London, 2008; POPPY + GEORGE, Palace Theatre, Watford, 2016.
Work for young people includes TURNCOAT for Theatre Centre, ONE HUNDRED MILLION FOOTSTEPS for Quicksilver Theatre Company and HOW TO BEAT A GIANT for the Unicorn.
Diane has also written widely for BBC radio, plays including SWINE, DOCTOR Y, WATCH OUTFOR MISTER STORK, HEN PARTY, PSYCHE and Woman's Hour serial TIGER WINGS.
Music theatre work includes the book for PERSEPHONE (A LOVE STORY), music by Maurice Chernick, Rosemary Branch 2013; THE A-Z OF MRS P, music/lyrics by Gwyneth Herbert, Southwark Playhouse 2014.
As Pearson Creative Research Fellow 2004/5 at the British Library, she completed research into magic and her booklet A WRITER'S MAGIC NOTEBOOK was published in 2006.
Currently working with Gwyneth Herbert on THE RHYTHM METHOD, inspired by adventures in contraception, recipient of Wellcome Trust Award; SONG OF DINA, with Maurice Chernick, oratorio with spoken word giving voice to the little-known and dramatic story of only sister of the Bible’s Joseph (of Technicolour Dreamcoat fame); and WALTZ WITH ME about the marriage, heartbreak, calling and possible sainthood of Mother Cornelia Connelly.
Her plays and book, "DIANE SAMUELS' KINDERTRANSPORT" are published by Nick Hern Books:
TWITTER Diane Samuels @WritingBright