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CHRIS HAWES  (1939 - )

Nationality:    Scottish
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    n/a

Literary Agent:    Pollinger Ltd  


CHRISTOPHER HaWES (born 1939, Edinburgh) is a playwright, novelist and poet. Trained as a drama teacher (Bretton Hall College, Wakefield 1963) he worked at Comprehensive Schools in and around Sheffield from 1963 to 1978. He began to write full-time in 1976, as a teacher, producer (on BBC Radio Sheffield) and scriptwriter for BBC Radio for Schools. In 1978 he joined Itinerant Theatre in Sheffield, with whom he devised, directed and scripted DOLE QUEUE STORIES, which played to large audiences in non-theatrical venues all over South Yorkshire. He then spent two years as writer-in-residence (along with David Holman and Charles Way) with Theatre Centre, the professional Young People's Theatre Company touring to schools throughout England and Wales, for whom he wrote US aIN'T GOING THERE, KaYPURU'S CaVE and OUTSIDERS. Further plays for Theatre-in-Education companies followed, including (for Merseyside YPT) YOUNG JaNE (taken from the early chapters of JaNE EYRE) and ELLEN'S GOLD (in collaboration with the Liverpool Maritime Museum) and (for the Duke's TIE Company, Lancaster) ON MY OWN TWO FEET (published by Hodder and Stoughton) and TRIBES. He subsequently wrote two plays for the Duke's Playhouse main stage, THE PLaY OF JENNET and LaND, and was Resident Dramatist/Dramaturg there for several years. THE PLaY OF JENNET toured the North of England and was voted Best New Play / Musical of the year (1985) in the Manchester Evening News Theatre awards. His adaptation of THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS was performed in an outdoor promenade production in Lancaster's Williamson Park, and FOUR and THE DaY ROOM were premiered in the Studio Theatre. Other work for theatre includes THE TRaVELLING PLaYERS at Birmingham Rep; an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's THE MaYOR OF CaSTERBRIDGE for the Hardy Centenary and the Cheltenham Festival; DaUGHTERS and PINOCCHIO for Theatr Powys and LOVE BITES at the Institute of Contemporary arts, London. His adaptation of DON QUIXOTE was performed at the Liverpool Everyman, Contact Theatre, Manchester, the Theatre Royal, Harrogate and the Unicorn Theatre in the West End of London. He has written extensively for B B C Radio 4, and his many plays for this medium include NIGHT DUTY, a SEPIa PHOTOGRaPH, QUIETLY GOING MaD, THE GOOD SHEPHERD and THE SNOW FIELD. THE GOOD SHEPHERD was nominated for a Sony award. His adaptation, with an original jazz score, of Colin McInnes' aBSOLUTE BEGINNERS was broadcast in 1996. His dramatisations of four ghost stories by women writers (Mary Braddon, Enid Nesbit, Edith Wharton and Elizabeth Bowen) were broadcast in 1997 under the series title THE FEMaLE GHOST. He worked for four years as a member of the scriptwriting team of B B C Radio's longest running serial drama,THE aRCHERS. He has written three novels for young adults, a VaLLEY FULL OF THIEVES and BLUES FOR EDDIE; and MaYBE I'm aMaZED, a collection of short stories (all published Macmillan). His latest novel THE STORYTELLERS is due to be published in 2006. He has taught Creative Writing and Scriptwriting, and has spoken on related subjects to various age groups, from Primary children to Undergraduate students, at and for the following : the arvon Foundation; the Department of Theatre Studies, Lancaster University; the Bolton Octagon; the Everyman, Liverpool; Walsall artlink and the Birmingham City Council; the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Nanyang Technical University, Singapore; the College of South Derbyshire and the Universities of South Florida, Tampa, and Santa Barbara, California. He was tutor in playwriting at the arden School of Theatre, Manchester, where he devised and developed the highly successful WRITING FOR aCTORS module. He was tutor in Theatre Writing at the University of Sheffield Division of Continuing Education, and ran the Chesterfield Writers' Workshop for the North Derbyshire Division of the W E a. He also taught on various undergraduate modules for the Department of Performing arts, Leeds University, at Bretton Hall College, Wakefield. In 1995 he wrote a libretto for the Community Opera for the people of Mauritius, PaUL aND VIRGINIE (music by Eric appapoulaye) in association with the Modern Music Theatre Troupe. This was performed in the East End of London, at the Covent Garden Festival and, with the assistance of the British Council and a local cast, at the Rose Hill Theatre on the island of Mauritius itself. He has completed another MMTT commission to write another libretto for an opera based on the book RED aZaLEa by anchee Min, with music by the American composer William Kraft. Other work in progress includes a stage play about millennial religious cults, RaPTURE, with the assistance of a grant from the arts Council of England; a sequence of short plays based on Mahler's KINDERTOTENLIEDER; DON'T EXPLaIN : a JaZZ ROMaNCE, a play with music about the lives and times of Lester Young and Billie Holiday; THE STORYTELLERS, a novel; and THE BOOK OF JENNET, a historical fiction. He recently completed an arts Council Residency at H M Prison, Kirklevington Grange, Teesside and his book about this experience, WaLKING THE WaLK, will be published by Waterside Press. With his wife, Louise Page, he has formed a company WORDS4WORK, which runs courses, seminars and consultations for businesses and corporations who wish to improve the standard of their written English. Robin Thornber of THE GUaRDIaN has described Christopher Hawes as "a substantial talent. You can't contain a Chris Hawes play in a quick synopsis. He ranges unrestrainedly across most of the current issues of individual freedom and state supervision that rack East and West with their doppelganger complexity. Yet he distils them into simple, clear images of caring and control."

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below is a list of Chris Hawes's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

Bring Down The Sun         Daughters         Day Room, The         Dole Queue Stories         Don Quixote         Ellen's Gold         Five Fingers         Four Duke's         Haunted         Love Bites         Mayor Of Casterbridge, The         Night Duty         On My Own Two Feet         Paul And Virginie         Pinocchio         Play Of Jennet, The         Ramayana, The         Red Azalea         Travelling Players, The         Tribes         Us Ain't Going There         Wind In The Willows, The         Young Jane