Roy Williams (playwright)


Roy Samuel Williams, , is an English playwright. Williams has many awards including the George Devine Award for Lift Off, the 2001 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Clubland, the 2002 BAFTA Award for Best Schools Drama for Offside and 2004 South Bank Show Arts Council Decibel Award. Most recently his play Sucker Punch was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Best New Play and the Olivier Award for Best New Play 2011. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Birthday Honours and sits on the board of trustees for Theatre Centre. In 2018, he was a made a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Early life

Williams was born and brought up in Notting Hill, London, the youngest of four siblings in a single-parent home, with his mother working as a nurse after his father moved to the US. Williams decided to work in theatre after being tutored by the writer Don Kinch when he was failing in school and attended some rehearsals in a black theatrical company Kinch ran. After leaving school at the age of 18 Williams did various jobs, including working in McDonald's and in a props warehouse. He was 25 years old when he took a theatre-writing degree at Rose Bruford College and has worked ever since as a writer.
His first full-length play was The No Boys Cricket Club, which premiered in 1996 at Theatre Royal Stratford East. Williams has done work in television, including adapting his own play Fallout, and also co-wrote the script for the 2014 British film Fast Girls.

Awards

Williams has won the Alfred Fagon Award twice; in 1996, for Starstruck, and in 2010, for Sucker Punch.

Work

His plays include: