Joe Penhall (b. 1967) is a British playwright and screenwriter. Born in London, his first major play was Some Voices for the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1994. It has twice been revived off Broadway. Penhall won the Laurence Olivier Award, the Evening Standard Award and the Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Blue/Orange, a play about the dynamics between a young black schizophrenic man and two psychiatrists in a London mental hospital. It premiered at the National Theatre in 2000, directed by Roger Michell, with Bill Nighy, Andrew Lincoln and Chiwetel Ejiofor in the cast. Penhall adapted Ian McEwan's novel “Enduring Love” for a 2004 film starring Rhys Ifans and Daniel Craig, and wrote the screenplay for BBC2's BAFTA nominated four-part dramatisation of Jake Arnott's East-End gangster novel “The Long Firm”. His next play Dumb Show, a comic attack on the excesses of tabloid journalists, was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Terry Johnson in 2004. Penhall has said that after writing Blue/Orange -- a 'huge dark play' -- he wanted to write a 'small light play'. Landscape With Weapon, about a brilliant young engineer who invents an innovative and devastating weapon of mass destruction, was first performed at the National Theatre in 2007, directed by Roger Michell. Penhall adapted The Road by Cormac McCarthy for the screen in 2009. The film was directed by John Hillcoat and starred Viggo Mortensen. He also wrote the BBC Two detective series "Moses Jones."
