Career
Stenham's debut play That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in April 2007. It was directed by Jeremy Herrin and starred Lindsay Duncan as the alcoholic mother Martha and Matt Smith as her son Henry. Stenham won the Evening Standard's 2007 Charles Wintour Award, the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the 2007 Theatrical Management Association Award for Best New Play.
The play received praise from some reviewers, with Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph commenting:
This is one of the most astonishing debuts I have seen in more than 30 years of theatre reviewing. Its author, Polly Stenham, a graduate of the Royal Court's Young Writers Programme, is 20 now, just 19 when she wrote a play that sent me reeling into the night... In every respect this is a remarkable and unforgettable piece of theatre.
Stenham represented the Royal Court at the 2007 Latitude Festival before That Face transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2008 with largely the same cast and again under Jeremy Herrin's direction.
Her second play, Tusk Tusk premiered in the downstairs teatre at the Royal Court in March 2009 directed by Jeremy Herrin.
She is currently adapting her first two plays for the screen. As well as working on a screenplay called Dope Girls for Film Four about the first ever cocaine scandal to be directed by Adam Smith.
In 2011 Stenham, along with friend Victoria Williams, opened an art gallery, the Cob Studios and Gallery in Camden, London.
In 2013 her third play No Quarter was staged at the Royal Court, directed by Jeremy Herrin and starring Tom Sturridge.
Read more about this topic: Polly Stenham
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