Penny Black
Biography
Biography
I originally studied drama at the Schauspielschule Krauss in Vienna, before returning to the UK six years later and started translating plays.
Since then I have translated and adapted over 40 plays for a variety of theatres such as the Royal Court, the Gate, the National Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Arcola Theatre as well as venues in America and Australia. My translation of Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek’s SPORTSPLAY toured the UK during the year of the 2012 Olympics and was chosen as a Cultural Olympic Pop-Up event.
My work as a dramaturg includes: THE COLOURED VALENTINO by Beverly Andrews (to be produced 2023/24); with Simon McBurney/Complicité on THE MAGIC FLUTE for the DNO/ENO; for the Barbican Theatre/ Sydney Theatre’s production of Julia Leigh’s AVALANCHE. in 2019.
My first original play MAKING BABIES, AN EMBRYONIC FARCE was translated into German and premiered in 2004 in Heilbronn, Germany; SUDDEN SILENCE premiered at a festival of new writing at the Arcola Theatre in 2009.
In 2018, the Gustav Klimt centenary year, I was commissioned by the Belvedere Museum in Vienna to write a play about Emilie Flöge for the actress Maxi Blaha. BELOVED MUSE was performed throughout 2018 at the Belvedere Museum in German and the English-language version toured to Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, Japan, France, Turkey; in Great Britain it was performed at both the Royal Academy of Arts and the Barbican.
Again, for Maxi Blaha I wrote ALMA WHO?, about Alma Mahler, which premiered at the Klimt Villa in June 2021 before moving into the Leopold Museum and will kick off its post-corona tour to New Zealand autumn 2022.
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, for Jake Murray and Peracals Productions based on the book THE GIFT OF ALZHEIMERS by Maggie La Tourelle, was delayed due to Covid.
I was Royal Literary Fund Fellow from 2015 – 2018 at Oxford Brookes University and St Mary’s Twickenham, and president of the Dramaturgs’ Network 2015-2018.