Lee Hall
He was appointed Writer in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1999/2000 under the Pearson Playwrights Scheme Award. Cooking with Elvis, adapted from the play he wrote for the BBC Radio 'God's Country' series, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival in 2000 and transferred to London's West End in a production starring the comedian Frank Skinner. His adaptation of Goldoni's The Servant with Two Masters was first staged at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford in 1999. He has translated two plays by Bertolt Brecht: Mr. Puntilla and His Man Matti, written for The Right Size/Almeida Theatre, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1998; and Mother Courage, staged by Shared Experience Theatre Company in 2000. His adaptation of the Dutch play The Good Hope by Herman Heijermans opened at the Royal National Theatre in 2001. He also wrote the screenplay to the film Billy Elliot, directed by Stephen Daldry for Tiger/ BBC Films/WT2, and received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He adapted his own play, I Luv You Jimmy Spud (1997) as a feature film starring Billy Connolly in 2000. In 2005, Hall wrote the critically acclaimed Billy Elliot the Musical and co-wrote the screenplay for the film, Pride and Prejudice, and adapted The Wind in the Willows for television, in 2006. The Pitmen Painters premiered at the Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne in 2007. For more information about Lee Hall, visit one of the following sites: |
Shows by this playwright produced at Palm Beach Dramaworks The Pitmen Painters |
Lee Hall was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1966, the son of a house painter and decorator and a housewife. He was educated at comprehensive school and then at Cambridge University, where he studied English Literature at Fitzwilliam College. After leaving Cambridge, he worked as a youth theatre fundraiser in Newcastle and at the Gate Theatre London. In 1997, his playing career was launched with the broadcast of his radio play, Spoonface Steinberg, a monologue for a nine-year-old autistic girl dying of cancer. He subsequently adapted the play for television in 1998 and for the stage in 2000.
