Sarah Wooley
Sarah Wooley is a writer and director. She trained at RSAMD. Most of her
work is for the stage, but she has recently begun writing for
radio.
Her radio credits:
2012 Coalition
2010 A Nice Little Holiday
2008 Life Savings
2008 The have oak trees in North Carolina (stage play ad. for radio)
2006 Let them call it Jazz
2005 Folie à Trois
Her theatre writing credits include:
UNDER THE CONCRETE WAITING (National Theatre Studio)
SHIRLEY AND THE DEVEREAUXS
(performed by 3rd year students at Arts Educational Drama School).
She was invited onto the NT writers course in 2003 and was one of
five writers who took part in the Guiding Lights season for BBC
Radio Drama in 2006.
Sarah’s worked for two years at the National Theatre
as a Staff Director with Peter Gill, Trevor Nunn, Di Trevis ,
Harold Pinter and Tim Supple. Her productions include ROMEO AND JULIET,
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST and LUTHER.
She was Director on attachment
at the National Theatre Studio (2003) working on readings
of plays by Kwami Kwei- Armah , Steve Waters, Simon Bowen,
Trevor Williams and others. She was Acting Artistic Director for
Thea Sharrock
at Southwark Playhouse in the same year. She was Assistant Director
to Steven Daldry on Caryl Churchill's A NUMBER working with Michael
Gambon and Daniel Craig and Trainee Director for the Tron Theatre,
Glasgow and Assistant Director at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park.
Other directing credits:
SLADEK and A SEXUAL CONGRESS at the
National (Platforms)
VENUS AND ADONIS at Regent's Park
Howard Brenton’s
THIRTEENTH NIGHT at Southwark Playhouse and Arches Theatre, Glasgow
THREE MORE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS by Caryl Churchill at the Royal Court
HUMAN CANNON by Edward Bond RNT Studio,
DEPARTURES at the Old Vic
for Old Vic New Voices
SCOTT OF THE ANTARTIC at Citizens' Theatre,
Glasgow
TALK RADIO and KENNEDY’S CHILDREN at Arches Theatre.
She has also directed at Drama schools in London:
plays by Caryl Churchill, Rebecca Gilman, David Greig,
Chris Hannan, Vladimir Gubaryev and Michel Tremblay.
Sarah has a new stage play, THEY HAVE OAK TREES IN SOUTH CAROLINA,
which has just opened at the Tristan Bates Theatre. There is an excellent review of the
production in "The Stage", Nov 07.
Sarah is represented by
Giles Smart at PFD. Drury House 34-43 Russell Street London WC2B 5HA.
Notes on the Radio plays
COALITION....2012
6 Jan 2012. Thriller set in the world of coalition politics. A Lib Dem MP never expected to have a Cabinet post, but now she's in office, hoping that her past doesn't come back to haunt her. With Maureen Beattie, Nick le Prevost, Melody Grove, Robin Laing, Monica Gibb, Simon Donaldson. Producer Gaynor MacFarlane.
A NICE LITTLE HOLIDAY....2010
About playwright John Osborne. 30 Sep 2010, afternoon play. When Osborne was on holiday in France with his mistress Jocelyn Rickards in 1969, he wrote "Damn You, England", an infamous letter of hatred to the nation's people. It caused a bit of fuss, and he found himself under siege. This is all based on actual events. Cast: Tracey Wiles, Robin Laing, Tobias Menzies, Matthew Zajac, Richard Greenwood, James A Pearson. Producer Gaynor MacFarlane.
LIFE SAVINGS....2008
12 Dec 08; Friday play, commissioned, written and recorded in 6 weeks. It's a contemporary comedy drama about the pressures of middle age, the credit crunch and Christmas. Starring Stuart McQuarrie as the Glasgow shampoo king, Des Monroe. Producer Gaynor McFarlane.
THEY HAVE OAK TREES IN NORTH CAROLINA....2008
Scheduled for Friday Play slot, 9pm 29 Aug 08. It's 1985 and Ray and Eileen's 5 year old son vanishes. 22 years later, a good-looking American arrives in their small English village claining to be
their boy.
Cast: Ellie Haddington, Alexander Morton and Simon Harrison; producer Gaynor Mac Farlane.
Note ....Josephine Tey's play BRAT FARRAR (1959) also starts with the return of a disappeared twin.
Let them Call it Jazz .... 2006
By Jean Rhys, adapted by Sarah Wooley (Women’s Hour drama, 14 Nov 06).
It tells the story of Selina, a black woman newly arrived in a slum in
Notting Hill in the late 50’s, who finds herself caught up in a seedy
world that she doesn't quite understand.
It stars Adjoa Andoh and is part of a week of
adaptations called 'Guiding Lights' on Radio Four where
short stories by leading women writers are adapted into
15-minute plays by contemporary
dramatists.
Cast: Adjoa Andoh, James Bryce, Carol Ann Crawford,
Mark McDonnell, Lucy Paterson, Nick Underwood.
Folie à Trois .... 2005
Friday Play. This bleak but humorous tale of mental illness is named after a
psychiatric condition shared by two or more people who are mutually
dependent. This drama is inspired by the real case of three sisters
and their elderly aunt who locked themselves in their home and
deliberately starved themselves to death. Here, events are relocated
to a Scottish suburb where Minnie (Molly Innes), a woman in her
thirties, lives with her mother (Eileen McCallum, above) and aunt
(Colette O'Neil). The two older women are agoraphobic, while Minnie
believes that the television sends her messages and that the Apocalypse
is approaching.
This play was shortlisted for the Imison Award (best
script by a newcomer broadcast in 2005) and a Mental Health Media Award.
It was reviewed favourably in the Radio Times and the Independent.
copyright Sarah Wooley / Nigel Deacon / Diversity website
