Aulias

Evan Placey was born in Toronto, Canada, and now lives in London, England, with his partner Daniel and their adopted son, nicknamed The Boy on social networks.

Placey was a child actor^[1] and went to a drama school at a very early age, which was a liberating experience for him. Yet, he understood early on that he was better at writing and directing plays than at acting in them. He later graduated in Drama at McGill University, during which he attended the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme. He is now a Creative Writing Fellow and a Senior Lecturer at Southampton University.

An acclaimed playwright who has received quite a few prizes (in the UK, the Writers' Guild Award; in France, the Prix Scenic Youth; in Germany, the Jugend Theatre Preis Baden-Wuttemberg) , Placey writes for young audiences, for the stage mainly, but also for the radio, television and cinema. His plays have been commissioned by the National Theatre, Out of Joint, The Unicorn, National Youth Theatre, Stratford East... His plays have been translated into many languages (French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Korean...) and published in England by Nick Hern Books.

Placey draws inspiration from his life experience or from the news. For instance, he was a learning support assistant to an autistic child, which helped him better understand his main character in WiLd! (2017), whereas he was moved to write Girls Like (2013) that partly because of Amanda Todd. He also researches his plays by meeting and working with people who have experienced the problems of his characters. For example, he worked with convicts, ex-convicts and their families to prepare for Holloway Jones (2012). He usually writes a first draft from such interviews, then workshops the plays with the actors and the director, and then writes a new version.

Among his many plays are Mother of Him (2010) on the journey of teenage-rapist's mother; Banana Boys (2011) on reconfiguring friendships when the captain of the football team comes out; Holloway Jones (2012) on the question of determinism and the emancipating role of sports; Girls Like That (2013) on bullying, feminism and new technology; Pronoun (2014) on gender reassignment; Consensual (2015) on consent and statutory rape. His most recent play is a modern adaptation^[2] of Jekyll and Hyde.

In the video, you are going to hear Evan Placey and his translator, Adélaïde Pralon, answer questions from the floor on his play Girls Like That.