Sam Holcroft

Sam Holcroft graduated from Edinburgh University with First Class Honors in Developmental Biology, and went on to pursue research into the physiological and genetic control of stem cell production and differentiation. She then left the academic world to pursue playwriting. Her first play, Cockroach, was performed at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre in 2008, and has been followed by a series of ambitious, challenging, plays, including While You Lie, Edgar & Annabel, and an adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. She won the Tom Erhardt Award for up-and-coming writers in 2009. Her work is both elegant and shocking. She has the remarkable ability to seamlessly weave together concurrent narratives within a single play and to devise ingenious formal innovations to illumine her subject matter. She has been Writer-in-Residence at the National Theatre Studio and is a former Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre. The National Theatre produced her play Rules for Living in 2015.