British dramatist (born 1947)
Bryony Lavery (born 1947) is a British dramatist, known for her successful and award-winning 1998 play "Frozen". In addition to her work in theatre, she has also written for television and radio. She has written books including the biography "Tallulah Bankhead" and "The Woman Writer's Handbook". She taught playwriting at the University of Birmingham.
Biography.
Lavery grew up in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
Having begun her career as an actress, she decided that she wanted to write plays with better parts for women. Early in her career she founded a theatre company called "Les Oeufs Malades" (The Bad Eggs) with actors Gerard Bell and Jessica Higgs. She also founded Female Trouble, More Female Trouble, and served as artistic director of Gay Sweatshop.
Her plays have a feminist undertone. She has written such plays as "More Light", which has only one male speaking role, with almost entirely female casts. Since 1976 she has written more than twenty plays. 
In addition, she has written translations of such works as Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya". 
She has written five plays for the National Theatre Connections series. Her successful "Frozen" triggered a controversy and discussion about artistic sources and plagiarism. It was the subject of a piece by Malcolm Gladwell published in "The New Yorker" and collected in his book "What the Dog Saw". 
She adapted "Treasure Island", the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, as a play which was first performed on the Olivier Stage of the National Theatre, London, on 3 December 2014.
She was married to a man until her early thirties. Since that period, Lavery has identified as gay.
References.
 ;templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" / ;