Dan Rebellato

I’m a playwright and an academic and stuff like that...

Playwriting

My plays include Chekhov in Hell (Plymouth Drum, 2010), Static (Suspect Culture & Graeae, 2008), Here’s What I Did With My Body One Day (Lightwork, 2005/6), Mile End (Analogue, 2007), Beachy Head (Analogue, 2009), Theatremorphosis (Suspect Culture & CCA, 2009), Outright Terror Bold and Brilliant (NYT/Soho, 2006) and A Modest Adjustment (National Theatre, 2006). I’ve written over thirty plays for BBC Radio, including Cavalry, My Life is a Series of People Saying Goodbye, You & Me and Restless Dreams and over twenty plays for theatre.

Academic

My books include 1956 and All That (1999), Theatre & Globalization (2009), Contemporary European Theatre Directors (2010), and Decades of British Playwriting: 2000-2009 and The Suspect Culture Book (2013) and the Cambridge Companion to British Theatre since 1945 (2024). I’ve written numerous articles on modern and contemporary theatre, including Sarah Kane, David Greig, David Hare, Mark Ravenhill, Caryl Churchill, Simon Stephens, Dennis Kelly, Dario Fo, Noel Coward, Terence Rattigan. I have been associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review and New Theatre Quarterly and co-editor of the Theatre & series for Palgrave Macmillan.

Teaching

I’m Professor of Contemporary Theatre (and currently Head of Department) at Royal Holloway, University of London, where I teach British theatre, playwriting, radio drama, theory and philosophy, contemporary theatre, musical theatre and Naturalist theatre. I supervise a number of PhDs, usually in the areas of recent British theatre and theory/philosophy. I’ve also taught classes for the Arvon Foundation, Birmingham University, Soho Theatre, Central School of Speech and Drama, Royal Court, Watford Palace Theatre and the University of Barcelona.

Personal

I was born in 1968 in London. I went to university in Bristol and did a PhD at Royal Holloway, where I still teach. I live in South London with my wonderful wife Lilla, who is a teacher of English and Drama, and our little boy Ethan Blue.