Playwright, born in Zlín, SE Czech Republic of Czech parents. He lived in Singapore, moving with his family to England in 1946, where he was educated. In 1960 he went to London as a freelance journalist and theatre critic, and wrote radio plays. He made his name with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967, Tony). Other plays include the philosophical satire Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974, Tony), The Real Thing (1982, Tony), Arcadia (1993), the trilogy The Coast of Utopia (2002), and Rock'n'Roll (2006, Evening Standard Theatre Award for best play). He has also written a novel, Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966), as well as several short stories. His television plays include Professional Foul (1977) and Squaring the Circle (1984), and his screenplays include Empire of the Sun (1987) and Shakespeare in Love (1998). He was married to Miriam Stoppard (divorced, 1992). He received a knighthood in 1997.
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE (born Tomáš Straussler on July 3, 1937) is a British playwright. Born in Czechoslovakia, he is famous for plays such as The Real Thing and Rosencrantz &
Biography
Stoppard was born in Zlín, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), into a Jewish family.
In India, Stoppard received an English education. His mother Martha married a British army major named Kenneth Stoppard, who gave the boy his English surname.
Stoppard left school at seventeen and began work as a journalist for Western Daily Press. By 1960 he had completed his first play A Walk on the Water, which was later produced as Enter a Free Man. From September 1962 until April 1963, Stoppard worked in London as a drama critic for Scene, writing reviews and interviews both under his name and under the pseudonym William Boot (taken from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop).
By 1977, Stoppard had become concerned with human rights issues, in particular with the situation of political dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe. In June, Stoppard met Vladimir Bukovsky in London and travelled to Czechoslovakia (then under communist control), where he met Václav Havel, at that time a dissident playwright. Stoppard became involved with Index on Censorship, Amnesty International, and the Committee against Psychiatric Abuse and wrote various newspaper articles and letters about human rights. Stoppard was also instrumental in translating Havel's works into English. The Tom Stoppard Prize was created in 1983 (in Stockholm, under the Charter 77 Foundation) and is awarded to authors of Czech origin. In August 2005 Stoppard visited Minsk to give a seminar on playwriting, and to learn first-hand about various human rights and political problems in Belarus.
Work for the theatre
Stoppard's plays are plays of ideas that deal with philosophical issues, yet he combines the philosophical ideas he presents with verbal wit and visual humor. Guildenstern Are Dead is one of Stoppard's most famous works — a comedic play which casts two minor characters from Hamlet as its leads but with the same lack of power to affect their world or exterior circumstances as they have in Shakespeare's original. Rather than shaping events, they pass the time playing witty word games and pondering the hows, wheres, whys and whos of their predicament. (1968) Enter a Free Man (1968) The Real Inspector Hound is one of his best-known short plays. The viewer is watching a play within a play. In a particularly Stoppardian touch, he based the cheesy whodunnit the critics are watching very closely on Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, knowing full well that the producers of that play (still running in London's West End) couldn't complain without drawing attention to the very thing they want to conceal, that Stoppard's play (even its title alone) gives away their "surprise" ending. Stoppard notes that it is frequently performed as a companion piece to The Real Inspector Hound. It is set in an alternate reality where some British astronauts have landed on the moon and "Radical Liberals" (read Communists) have taken over the British government. The play starts from the fact that Tristan Tzara, Vladimir Lenin, and James Joyce were all in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1917 (in fact they were there at slightly different times, but Stoppard gets round this by telling the story through the memory of a confused old man, Henry Carr - hence also the facts getting mixed up with the plot of The Importance of Being Earnest, which Carr performed in at the time). New-Found-Land is a brief interlude in which two government officials try to decide whether to give British citizenship to an eccentric American (based on one of Stoppard's acquaintances), and contains an imaginative rhapsody about America. (1977) Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is one of Stoppard's most unusual works. The play calls for a small cast, but also a full orchestra, which not only provides music throughout the play but also forms an essential part of the action. The play concerns a dissident under an oppressive regime (obviously meant to be taken for a Soviet controlled state) who is imprisoned in a mental hospital, from which he will not be released until he admits that his statements against the government were caused by a (non-existent) mental disorder. Set in a fictional African country governed by the tyrant Mageeba, the plot involves the interactions of two British reporters and a British photographer and the family of a British mine owner during a period of unrest in the country. (1979) 15-Minute Hamlet The entire play of Hamlet, only in fifteen minutes. (1981) On the Razzle is a comedic farce based on a play by 19th-century Austrian playwright Johann Nestroy, Einen Jux will er sich machen (which is the source for Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker and the musical Hello, Dolly as well). (1982) The Real Thing examines love and fidelity, and makes extensive use of play within a play. He also compares the dual nature of light (is it a wave that sometimes seems like particles, or vice versa) with a double agent who is not sure which side he is really working for. (1995) Indian Ink is based on his radio play In The Native State, and examines British rule in India from both sides. The work consists of three plays: "Voyage," "Shipwreck," and "Salvage." Stoppard gives the character Max Morrow a surprising number of lines relating to fish pie, thought to be a way of teasing Brian Cox (who played Morrow in the first performances) about an embarrassing TV ad for Young's Fish Pie he had done many years before. It was a controversial addition to the Royal Court's 50th anniversery season, due to the left-leaning nature of much of the Royal Court's work and the anti-communist nature of much of Stoppard's work (including "Rock 'n'Roll" itself).
Work for radio, film, and TV
In his early years Stoppard wrote extensively for BBC radio, in many cases introducing a touch of surrealism. Stoppard later expanded the work to become the stage play Indian Ink (1995).
In his television play Professional Foul (1977), an English philosophy professor visits Prague, officially to speak at a colloquium, unofficially to watch a football international between England and Czechoslovakia.
He has also adapted many of his own plays for film and TV, notably the 1990 production of Rosencrantz & Tom Stoppard has written extensively for film and television. Jerome's novel for BBC Television) (1975) The Boundary (co-authored by Clive Exton, a 30 minute BBC television play written, rehearsed and performed within a week) (1977) Professional Foul (Dedicated to fellow playwright Václav Havel) (1985) Brazil (co-authored with Terry Gilliam, script nominated for an Academy Award) (1987) Empire of the Sun (1990) The Russia House (1998) Shakespeare In Love (co-authored with Marc Norman, script won an Academy Award) (2001) Enigma (2005) His Dark Materials (a draft screenplay, subsequently rejected) (2005) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (uncredited rewrite) (2007) The Bourne Ultimatum (in pre-production)
It is rumored that Stoppard assisted George Lucas in polishing up some of the dialogue for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, though Stoppard received no official or formal credit in this role.
Awards
1967: Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright 1968: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tony Award for Best Play, New York Critics Award Best Play of the Year, Prix Italia, Antoinette Perry Award for Best Play, Plays and Players Award for Best New Play 1972: Jumpers - Evening Standard Award for Best Play, Plays and Players Award for Best New Play 1974: Travesties - Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year 1976: Travesties - Tony Award for Best Play, Antoinette Perry Award for Best Play, New York Critics Award for Best Play 1978: Night and Day - Evening Standard Award for Best Play 1982: The Real Thing - Evening Standard Award for Best Play 1984: The Real Thing - Tony Award for Best Play, New York Critics Award for Best Foreign Play, Antoinette Perry Award for Best Play 1993: Arcadia - Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year 1994: Arcadia - Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play 1997: The Invention of Love - Evening Standard Award for Best Play 1998: Shakespeare in Love - Academy Award for Best Original ScreenplayNovel
Stoppard has written one novel, Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966).
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