Samantha Ellis is a British playwright and writer best known for her book How to be a Heroine and her play How to Date a Feminist

Early life

Ellis was born in London to

Iraqi-Jewish The history of the Jews in Iraq ( he, יְהוּדִים בָּבְלִים, ', ; ar, اليهود العراقيون, ) is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c. 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of the world's oldest and mo ...

parents. She studied English at Queens' College, Cambridge.

Career and works

Ellis's play ''The Candy Jar'' was produced at the

Edinburgh Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

in 1996. She worked as a journalist, and wrote a column on theatrical history for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' newspaper. Her play ''Patching Havoc'' was produced at

Theatre503 Theatre503, formerly the Latchmere Theatre, is a theatre located at 503 Battersea Park Road in Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth, above the Latchmere pub. The venue is known for promoting the work of new writers. History The the ...

in 2003. Her radio play ''Sugar and Snow'', set in the

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

community in north London, was produced on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

in 2006 and given a reading at the

Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. Roxana Silbert has been the artistic director since ...

. Her short play ''A Sudden Visitation of Calamity'' was produced at Menagerie Theatre in 2008. In 2010 her play ''The Thousand and Second Night'' was produced by

LAMDA LaMDA, which stands for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is a family of conversational neural language models developed by Google. The first generation was announced during the 2021 Google I/O keynote, while the second generation was ...

. In 2010 her play ''Cling To Me Like Ivy'', published by

Nick Hern Books Nick Hern Books is a London-based independent specialist publisher of plays, theatre books and screenplays. The company was founded by the former Methuen drama editor Nicholas Hern in 1988. History Nick Hern Books was founded in June 1988,Sara ...

, was produced by the

Birmingham Repertory Theatre Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Barry Jackson, it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre ...

and went on tour. In 2012 she was a founder member of women's theatre company Agent 160. Her book ''How to be a Heroine'' was published by Chatto & Windus in January 2014, and her biography of

Anne Brontë Anne Brontë (, commonly ; 17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet, and the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. Anne Brontë was the daughter of Maria (born Branwell) and Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish cl ...

''Take Courage: Anne Bronte and the Art of Life'' was published in January 2017.

References

External links

Samantha Ellis's doollee page

Samantha Ellis's website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, Samantha Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Jewish dramatists and playwrights Living people 1975 births English people of Iraqi-Jewish descent English Jewish writers Writers from London English women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights 20th-century English women writers 21st-century British dramatists and playwrights 21st-century English women writers People educated at the City of London School for Girls Jewish women writers