Anthony Neilson

Doris Mader (Karl-Franzens-Universit)

Ed. by Aleks Sierz, Independent Scholar - Europe
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Gina Lyle (University of York), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

Born 1967
Activity 1988-ongoing

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in United Kingdom

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist
Theatre Director

Resources

Neilson's Works

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Scottish playwright and director Anthony Neilson, born in 1967 into a family deeply involved in theatre, is commonly referred to as one of the representatives of “in-yer-face theatre”. Son to an actor and an actress, his own early experience with stage business and his acting have shaped his rather idiosyncratic version of what in the early 1990s was labelled as “experiential theatre” – a term Neilson prefers for his writing to any other. In any case, as an actor and producer himself, Neilson (who was a notoriously “difficult” pupil and “insubordinate” “drama student”) can certainly be attributed with having created his own ingenious style of playwriting.

His major contribution to the 1990s and early 2000s “New Writing Boom” (Dromgoole 2002: 215) lies in the

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5043 words

Citation: Mader, Doris. "Anthony Neilson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 February 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12573, accessed 25 November 2024.]