April De Angelis

April De Angelis is an acclaimed British playwright known for her powerful exploration of feminist themes and women's lives. Her work spans theatre, radio, and television, blending sharp wit with deep emotional insight.^[1]

De Angelis began her career in the 1980s as an actress with the Monstrous Regiment theatre company. In 1987, her play Breathless was a prize winner at the Second Wave Young Women's Writing Festival, marking the start of her transition into playwriting.^[2]

Her plays have been produced by the Royal Court, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampstead Theatre, and the West End. Notable works include Playhouse Creatures, A Laughing Matter and My Brilliant Friend and her acclaimed adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels for the stage. April's play Jumpy was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 2012 for Best New Play.^[3]

She has also written extensively for radio and television, with work broadcast by the BBC, and has contributed to opera, writing libretti for Flight (Glyndebourne) and The Silent Twins (Almeida).^[4]

• Breathless (1987)
• Women in Law (1988)
• Wanderlust (1988, Oval House Theatre Women's Workshop)
• Visitants (1988)
• Ironmistress (1989, Young Vic Theatre)
• Crux (1989, Paines Plough)
• Frankenstein (1989)
• The Life and Times of Fanny Hill (1991, Red Shift Theatre Company)
• Hush (1992, Royal Court Theatre)
• Greed (1993)
• Soft Vengeance (1993)^[a]
• Playhouse Creatures (Haymarket Theatre, 1993)
• The Positive Hour (1997, Out of Joint theatre company / Hampstead Theatre)
• A Warwickshire Testimony (1999, Royal Shakespeare Company)
• A Laughing Matter (2002, Out of Joint theatre company)
• Headstrong (2004, Royal National Theatre Shell Connections)
• Wild East (2005, Royal Court Theatre)
• Catch^[b] (2007, Royal Court Theatre)
• Wuthering Heights (2008)^[c]
• Jumpy (2011)
• After Electra (2015)
• My Brilliant Friend (2017)^[d]
• The Village (2018, Theatre Royal Stratford East)^[e]
• Wilderness (2019)
• Kerry Jackson (2020)
• Infamous (2023)
• The Divine Mrs S. (2024)

• Pig
• Flight
• Silent Twins (2007)
• Uprising

• English women dramatists and playwrights
• Living people
• 1960 births
• English opera librettists
• English people of Sicilian descent
• Alumni of the University of Sussex
• Alumni of East 15 Acting School
• Women opera librettists
• 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
• 20th-century English women writers
• 21st-century English dramatists and playwrights
• 21st-century English women writers

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from June 2015
• Use British English from June 2015
• BLP articles lacking sources from April 2011
• All BLP articles lacking sources
• Place of birth missing (living people)