Authors

Ayub Khan-Din (b. 1961) is a British playwright and actor, born in Salford, Lancashire, England. His father is British Pakistani and his mother is white British. As an actor, Khan-Din is best-known for the role of Sammy in Hanif Kureishi’s “Sammy and Rosie Get Laid” (1987). He is also an…

After a brief career as an actor and journalist Barrie Keeffe (b. 1945) turned to full-time writing and directing in the theatre in 1975. His theatre plays include Only a Game, Gotcha, Abide with Me, My Girl, Bastard Angel, Sus, Frozen Assets, A Mad World My Masters, She’s so Modern,…

Barry Collins was born in 1941 in Halifax, West Yorkshire – where he still lives. For seven years he worked as a journalist before turning playwright in 1971. The one man play, Judgement, was first presented experimentally at the Theatre Royal, Bristol by Peter O’Toole in 1974. Its world premiere…

Barry Michael Harman (b. 14 March 1952; Brooklyn, New York) is an American writer and producer for television, and a Tony nominated book writer and lyricist for the Broadway theater. He wrote and directed the Broadway musical Romance/Romance, which starred Scott Bakula and Alison Fraser, and which received five Tony…

Bella (Cohen) Spewack was born on March 25, 1899, in Transylvania, at the time a province of the vast Austro-Hungarian Empire, now part of Romania. In 1922, she married Sam Spewack, a foreign correspondent for the New York World. After a four-year stint in Europe, the two began writing some…

Ben Brown is a British playwright who was nominated for the TMA Best New Play Award with his first production, All Things Considered. He went on to win the award with his hit play, Larkin With Women (2000). He also writes for television and film.

Benjamin Charles “Ben” Elton (b. 1959) is a London-born comedian, author, playwright and television director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder and as well as a successful stand-up comedian…

BEN H. WINTERS (Book) wrote book and lyrics for two musicals, both with composer Stephen Sislen: SLUT, which was produced Off Broadway in the fall of 2005 at the American Theater of Actors, following a record-breaking run in the New York International Fringe Festival; and SPREAD THE WORD: THE STORY…

Ben Travers (1886 – 1980) was a British playwright most famous for his farces. Born in the UK, Travers was educated at Charterhouse School (where today there is a theatre named for him), followed by a brief spell in business. Travers’ first play THE DIPPERS was produced in 1922 by…

Benno Besson, born René-Benjamin Besson, (1922-2006), was a Swiss actor and director. He had great success as director at Volksbühne Berlin, Deutsches Theater and Berliner Ensemble in East-Berlin, where he went by an invitation of Bertolt Brecht in 1949. Some of his acquainted stagings were “The Dragon” by Jewgenij Schwarz,…

Benoit Solès is a graduate of the Classe Supérieure d’Art Dramatique de Paris. He first appeared in Roger Louret’s Molière-winning musicals La Java des Mémoires and Les Années Twist, then at the Maison de la Culture de Loire-Atlantique (La Folle de Chaillot and Le Marchand de Venise, with Michel Blanc.…

Bent Fabricius-Bjerre (born 1924) is a Danish composer and musician. He has written the score for a large number of musicals, movies and television series; including ”Olsenbanden” / “The Olsen Gang” and “Matador” / “Monopoly” to name a few. He won an American Grammy for his song “Alley Cat” in…

Bent Hamer (born 1954) is award winning Norwegian scriptwriter, director and producer. He studied film theory and literature at the University of Stockholm and directing at the Stockholm Film School. In addition to his feature films, he has written and directed a number of short films and documentaries. Hamer is…

Bergljót Árnadóttir (born December 29, 1949 in Reykjavik, Iceland) is an Icelandic-Swedish playwright and actress trained at The National Theatre Academy in Stockholm. She has worked at many Swedish top theatres and has appeared in several television series and films.

Bergljot Hobæk Haff (born 1 May 1925) is a Norwegian novel writer. Upon completing her education, she traveled to Denmark, and taught there for 24 years before returning to Oslo. She made her debut with the novel Raset in 1956. Her books are translated into languages as English, French, Dutch,…

Bernard Kops is a British Dramatist, poet and novelist, born in the East End of London in 1926. His first play, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, was produced at the Oxford Playhouse in 1957. It is considered to be one of the keystones of the “New Wave” in British Kitchen…

Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948 – 1989) was a French playwright and director. Koltès’s work, based in real-life problems, expresses the tragedy of being alone and of death. His writing style accents the dramatic tension and the lyricism of his plays. Koltes is most famous for his plays The Night Just Before…

Elizabeth Becker Henley was born on May 8, 1952, in Jackson, Mississippi. Growing up, Henley always dreamed of becoming an actress. After graduating from highschool, she attended Southern Methodist University where she wrote her first play, a one-act entitled Am I Blue which was produced at SMU’s Margo Jones Theatre…

The team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, 1991 recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, and the longest running creative partnership in theatre history, began writing and performing their own satirical comic material in a group called The Revuers, which included the late Judy Holliday. They went on to collaborate…

Playwright and screenwriter Beverley Cross is best remembered for launching the illustrious career of actress Dame Maggie Smith. The son of an actress and a theater manager, Cross wrote his first play in the late ’50s. His second play, STRIP THE WILLOW (1960), starred a young Maggie Smith, and while…

BILL RUSSELL (Book co-author and Lyrics) wrote the book and lyrics for the critically acclaimed Broadway musical SIDE SHOW, receiving a Tony nomination for book and sharing a nomination with composer Henry Krieger for score. He co-wrote the book and lyrics for Off-Broadway’s long-running musical PAGEANT (with collaborators Frank Kelly,…

BILL RUSSELL (Book co-author and Lyrics) wrote the book and lyrics for the critically acclaimed Broadway musical SIDE SHOW, receiving a Tony nomination for book and sharing a nomination with composer Henry Krieger for score. He co-wrote the book and lyrics for Off-Broadway’s long-running musical PAGEANT (with collaborators Frank Kelly,…

Billy Roche (b. 1949) is an Irish playwright and actor. He was born and still lives in Wexford and most of his writings are based there. Originally a singer with The Roach Band, he turned to writing in the 1980s. As Michael Billington has noted, the 1980s were not a…

Bjarne Reuter was born in Brønshøj/Copenhagen in 1950. He is a trained teacher, but has worked full time as a writer since 1980. His books span widely; from magical worlds to the uncensored view on reality; catering for children, teenagers and grown-ups. Because of his sublime use of language, Reuter…

Bjørn Birch is a trained actor and dancer. He was employed at the theater Riksteatret for 8 years until 1982. He has appeared in over 40 plays, musicals and television and radio productions. Bjørn Birch was head of the Berliner Ensemble Krans which specializes in theater for social institutions from…

Bjørn Olaf Johannessen holds a degree in marine technology engineering and has worked as a researcher and environmental adviser in Trondheim and Oslo. He is active in the group of artists ‘The Chosen’, which have specialized in film and theatre. You can also find him at Screenwriters in Oslo. Apart…

Blake Edwards (born William Blake Crump, July 26, 1922 – December 15, 2010) was an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Edwards’ career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures. He used his writing skills to begin producing and…

Bo Sigvard Nilsson was born in 1942 in Gothenburg. He has published several books of which most of them are for adults. Nilsson has produced many hours of television drama – most of these being series for television. Some of Bo Sigvard Nilsson’s novels have also been produced for television.…

Stanley Robert “Bob” Crewe (1930 – 2014) was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager and record producer. He was known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for the Four Seasons. As a songwriter, his most successful songs included “Silhouettes” (co-written with Frank Slay);…

Robert John “Bob” Gaudio (b. 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer, and the keyboardist/backing vocalist for the Four Seasons.

One of popular music’s most prolific and popular songwriters, Bob Merrill was best known for a string of hits ranging from novelty smashes like HOW MUCH IS THAT DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW? to more serious fare including Barbra Streisand’s PEOPLE. Born in Philadelphia in 1923, Merrill hitchhiked to New York…

Boris Vian (1920 – 1959) was a French author, playwright, poet, singer, and musician, who also wrote under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan. He was born in Ville-d’Avray, near Paris, and educated at the École Centrale Paris. His works were often highly controversial, but his writing and performance of jazz songs…

Börje Nyberg, born Nils Börje Emanuel Nyberg, (1920-2005), was a Swedish actor, director and playwright. In 1943 he entered the National School of Theatre in Göteborg, where after he started his carrier as a director at Åbo Svenska Teater, then at Wasa Svenska Teater og finally at Helsingborg Theatre. In…

Boyan Papazov was born in Sophia in 1943. From 1965 until 1971 he attended the Moscow Film Academy. He followed the scriptwriting and direction courses and subsequently he has made several films as well as documentaries. Papazov is politically active in the UDF and was a member of the Bulgarian…

Børge Müller (1909 – 1963) was a Danish script writer and writer of revues. He’s famous for his contributions to films such as Meet Me At Cassiopeia and Mrs. Nitouche.

Børge Wagner was a solo hornist in the Danish Radiosymphony orchestra from 1956-68. He made his debut as a professional conductor in 1964. He was the permanent conductor at the Danish Odense Symphony Orchestra from 1968-86. He guest conducted at every Danish symphony orchestra, The Royal Life Guard’s band and…

Brendan Behan was born in Dublin in 1923. Behan left school at fourteen but spent two two years in Borstal and a further four (1942-46) in prison for political activities. Out of these experiences came his autobiography, Borstal Boy (1958), and his first stage play, The Quare Fellow (1954). His…

Brendan Cowell (born 16 August 1976) is an australian actor, screenwriter and director. Cowell was born in Bronulla, Sydney, New South Wales. He was stumbled upon acting by accident while waiting for his sister to come out of a rehearsal, he was then cast in a commercial at age 8.…