Chris Bush
Chris Bush is a playwright, lyricist and theatre-maker.
Her plays include: Otherland (Almeida Theatre, London, 2025); Robin Hood and the Christmas Heist written with Matt Winkworth (Rose Theatre, Kingston, 2024); an adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House (Sheffield Theatres, 2024); Rock/Paper/Scissors (Sheffield Theatres, 2022); an adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 2022); (Not) the End of the World (Schaubühne, Berlin, 2021); Hungry (Paines Plough, 2021); Nine Lessons and Carols (Almeida Theatre, London, 2020); Faustus: That Damned Woman (Headlong, Lyric Hammersmith & Birmingham Rep, 2020); The Last Noël (Old Fire Station, Oxford, 2019); Standing at the Sky's Edge, a musical with music and lyrics by Richard Hawley (Sheffield Theatres, 2019, revived 2022 and at the National Theatre in 2023, West End 2024); The Changing Room (National Theatre Connections, 2018); Steel (Sheffield Theatres, 2018); an adaptation of Pericles (National Theatre, London, 2018); The Assassination of Katie Hopkins, written with Matt Winkworth (Theatr Clwyd, 2018); What We Wished For and A Dream.
Jez Butterworth
Jez Butterworth is one of the UK's leading playwrights. His plays include: Mojo (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1995; West End, 2013); The Night Heron (Royal Court, 2002); The Winterling (Royal Court, 2006); Parlour Song (Atlantic Theater, New York, 2008; Almeida Theatre, London, 2009); Jerusalem (Royal Court, 2009; West End, 2010; New York, 2011); The River (Royal Court, 2012); The Ferryman (Royal Court and West End, 2017) and The Hills of California (West End, 2024).
Mojo won the George Devine Award, the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Writers' Guild, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Playwright. Jerusalem won the Best Play Award at the Critics' Circle, Evening Standard and WhatsOnStage.com Awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. The Ferryman won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play, and the Critics' Circle, Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards for Best New Play, as well as the 2019 Tony Award for Best Play.
His screenwriting credits include Fair Game (2010), Get On Up (2014), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Black Mass (2015), Spectre (2015), Ford v Ferrari (2019), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023).
For TV, he created and wrote the comedy series Mammals for Amazon Studios, and created the historical fantasy drama Britannia for Sky and Amazon Prime.
In 2007, he won the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2019 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Author photo by Steve Schofield
David Byrne
David Byrne is a playwright and theatre director, and the Artistic Director Designate of the Royal Court Theatre, London, where he will take over from Vicky Featherstone in 2024.
He is the founding Artistic Director and CEO of the New Diorama Theatre, one of London's most vibrant new work theatres.
His plays include The Incident Room, written with Olivia Hirst (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2019; New Diorama Theatre, London, 2020); Secret Life of Humans (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2017; New Diorama Theatre, 2018); and an adaptation of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2015; New Diorama Theatre, 2016).
Author photo by Tom Jamieson