Literature Wales Newsletter
The Writers of Wales Database
WOODS, SARAH
Sarah is currently writing Spin, a play about ballroom dancing (Hull Truck) and creating a new version of The Thief of Bagdad (Royal Opera House Christmas 2008) with the support of UNICEF. Sarah is working with The Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture on This is my Voice, a play about unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK (Soho Theatre). She is also adapting The Borrowers (Radio 4 Christmas 2008) and writing a forum theatre piece for Cardboard Citizens, together with developing a course on how to write forum theatre with Adrian Jackson.Recent productions include Box (Birmingham Rep 2007); Soap (Northampton Theatre Royal 2007, Scarborough 2005); a new version of Timon Of Athens (Cardboard Citizens for the RSC Complete Works 2006); Visible (Cardboard Citizens/RSC UK tour/Soho Theatre 2006); Hilda, a translation of a contemporary French play (National Theatre Channels/Hampstead Theatre 2006).
For younger audiences, Sarah has written One Day In The Future (Playbox Young People’s Theatre 2006). Theatre Centre remounted their UK tour of Sarah’s play Walking On Water (UK tour 2005 and 2007), while her adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox, directed by Steve Tiplady for the Little Angel (2005-6 UK tour/Polka Childrens’ Theatre), was revived as part of the RSC’s 2007 Christmas season and toured Canada this spring.
Other plays include: Cake (Jade Theatre Company); Antigone (Tag Theatre Co.Glasgow. Selected as a finalist of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2001); Trips (Birmingham Rep); and Grace (Jade Theatre Company. Nominated for the LWT Comedy Writing Award at the Edinburgh Festival).
For television: ’The World of the Impressionists’ (BBC1 2006) and ’If…The Oil Runs Out’ (BBC 2/Discovery 2006). For opera, Sarah re-wrote the Prologue to Ariadne auf Naxos (2006) as well as a new version of Fidelio, both for Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company. For Radio, Sarah has written over thirty original plays, adaptations and series.
Sarah ran the Mphil(B) in playwriting at Birmingham University for four years, and will be visiting The Hurst as an Arvon tutor for the second time this year. She is a member of the Monsters and lives in mid-Wales with her husband, three children, five dogs, two pigs and lots of chickens.
Reviews:
With respect to Soap
"…This is a delicious satire on all things soap… Fresh, original and very, very funny..."
Phil Penfold
With respect to Cake
"...Woods captures the brutal directness of the child that makes an adult flail. By the end, mayhem rules as ingredients cover every spot of stage and performer, and one wonders how many dress rehearsals they dared have. No matter. Let everyone eat this wonderful Cake..."
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard
"...Nobody could help being enraptured by it..."
Financial Times, November 2003
"...Sarah Woods’ script is light as a sponge but has the density to ensure this show is always more than it seems..."
Lyn Gardner, Guardian, November 2003
With respect to Grace
"...Sarah’s work is frantic, fluid, tough, touching and very, very original..."
Sarah Abdullah,Time Out
"...Grace is a hugely knowing piece in terms of the status, roles, ambitions and dreams of a contemporary Everywoman..."
Financial Times
With respect to Antigone
"...Antigone is an exceedingly canny match of text with context..."
The Independent, September 2000
"...Sarah Woods’ pithy text worked well without dumbing down..."
Roderic Dunnett, The Independent, March 2002
Selected Publications:
Trips (Oberon Press)
Grace/Cake (Oberon Press)
Hilda (Oberon Press)
Soap (Oberon Press)
Visible (Oberon Press)
Visible (Oberon Press)
When life is sweet as treacle and sugar and honey, why can’t Sunday lunch be perfect? When you’ve got everything you thought you wanted, how come you still want more?’
In their mock Georgian house on an exclusive estate, Rob and Hattie are preparing Sunday lunch for friends and neighbours – but all is not going to plan. Their seemingly cosy world of comfort and safety is about to explode… Visible is an unexpected and provocative comic drama following in the tradition of Cardboard Citizens’ work on the edge. The company’s roots in the forum theatre and experience of working with homeless people give it a socially innovative and distinct theatrical voice.
Visible is a co-commission by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Cardboard Citizens, and opened at the Soho Theatre in April 2006.
To purchase this title from Oberon Books please click on the front cover