BiographyStoppard, Tom, 1937-
Sir Tom Stoppard, OMIn 2000 Sir Tom Stoppard was was made a member of the Order of Merit by HM Queen Elizabeth. Membership of the Order is a personal gift of the Queen, unlike knighthoods which are awarded on the advice of government ministers. The order is limited to twenty-four members at a time. Other members are Baroness Thatcher, the artist Lucian Freud. The sculptor Sir Anthony Caro, mathematician Sir Roger Penrose and Nobel laureate chemist Sir James Black were also made members of the Order at the same time. Playwright Harold Pinter was awarded the same honour in the Queen's Golden Jubilee list in 2002.
Tom Stoppard was born "Tom Straussler" in Zlin, Czechoslovakia on July 3, 1937. His family moved to Singapore in 1939 to escape the Nazis. Then, shortly before the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1941, young Tom fled to Darjeeling, India with his mother and brother. His father, however, Eugene Straussler, remained behind and was killed during the invasion. In 1946, the family emigrated to England after Tom's mother married Kenneth Stoppard, a major in the British army.
At the age of 17, after just his second year of highschool, Stoppard left school and began working as a journalist for the WESTERN DAILY PRESS (1954-58) and the BRISTOL EVENING WORLD (1958-60). He began to show a talent for dramatic criticism and served for a time as freelance drama critic for SCENE (1962-3), a British literary magazine, writing both under his own name and the pseudonym William Boot. He also started writing plays for radio and television and soon managed to secure himself a literary agent.
Stoppard's first television play, A Walk on the Water (1963) would later be adapted for the stage as Enter a Free Man (1968). Over the next few years, he wrote various works for radio, television and the theatre including "M" is for Moon Among Other Things (1964), A Separate Peace (1966), and If You're Glad I'll Be Frank (1966). He also wrote 70 episodes of A Student's Diary: An Arab in London for the BBC World Service.
His first major success came with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966) which catapulted him into the front ranks of modern playwrights overnight when it opened in London in 1967. The play, which chronicles the tale of Hamlet as told from the worm's-eye view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare's play, was immediately hailed as a modern dramatic masterpiece.
Over the next ten years, Stoppard wrote a number of successful plays, the most popular of which include Jumpers (1972) and Travesties (1974). He also translated a number of plays including those of Mrozek, Nestroy, Schnitzler and Havel, and was heavily influenced by the work of the Polish and Czech absurdists.
Then, in 1977, after visiting Russia with a member of Amnesty International, Stoppard became concerned with a number of human rights issues which have manifested themselves in his work. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977) was actually written at the request of André Previn and was inspired by a meeting with Russian exile Viktor Fainberg. And Professional Foul (1977), a television play, was Stoppard's contribution to Amnesty International's declaration of 1977 as Prisoner of Conscience Year. Other works such as Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth (1979) and Squaring the Circle (1984) are direct attacks on the oppressive old regimes of Eastern Europe. Not all of Stoppard's plays, however, are political. One of his most recent works, The Invention of Love (1997), examines the relationship between famous scholar and poet A.E. Housman and the man he loved his entire life, Moses Jackson--a handsome athlete who could not return his feelings. The play opened to rave reviews at the Royal National Theatre in 1997.
In addition to his work for the stage, Stoppard has written a number of screenplays including The Human Factor (1979), Empire of the Sun (1987), and Billy Bathgate (1991). His screenplay for Brazil (1985), which he coauthored with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985, and in 1999, he won an Oscar for "Best Screenplay" for Shakespeare in Love (1998) which he coauthored with Marc Norman. Other awards include the John Whiting Award (1967), the EVENING STANDARD Award (1967, 1973, 1975, 1979, 1983), the Italia Prize for radio plays (1968), three Tony Award (1968, 1976, 1984), the Shakespeare Prize (1979), an Outer Circle Award (1984), and a Drama Desk Award (1984).
Playwright: Tom Stoppard
http://www.stage-door.org/authors/stoppard.htmPlaywright Tom Stoppard was born Tomas Straussler in Zlin, Czechoslovakia, on July 3, 1937. However, he lived in Czechoslovakia only until 1939, when his family moved to Singapore. Stoppard, his mother, and his older brother were evacuated to India shortly before the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1941; his father, Eugene Straussler, remained behind and was killed. In 1946, Stoppard's mother, Martha, married British army officer Kenneth Stoppard and the family moved to England, eventually settling in Bristol.
Stoppard left school at the age of seventeen and began working as a journalist, first with the WESTERN DAILY PRESS (1954-58) and then with the Bristol EVENING WORLD (1958-60). Having developed a specialization in film and theatre criticism, in 1960 Stoppard became a free-lance journalist, writing critical articles and, for the DAILY PRESS, two pseudonymous weekly columns. By the end of the year, he had completed his first full-length play, A WALK ON THE WATER (later produced on stage in 1968 as ENTER A FREE MAN), and acquired an agent, Kenneth Ewing of Fraser and Dunlop Scripts. He also wrote a one-act piece, THE GAMBLERS, which was eventually performed by the University of Bristol drama department in 1965. Stoppard has referred to this as his 'first' play in that he claims A WALK ON THE WATER was an unoriginal composite of several plays he admired. Over the next few years, Stoppard wrote various works for radio, television, and the theatre. Among these were "M" IS FOR MOON AMONG OTHER THINGS (1964), A SEPARATE PEACE (1966), and IF YOU'RE GLAD I'LL BE FRANK (1966). A WALK ON THE WATER had been broadcast on ITV Television in 1963 and on BBC-TV in 1964, and Stoppard wrote many episodes of the radio serial A STUDENT'S DIARY: AN ARAB IN LONDON (1966-67). In addition, three short stories were published by Faber and Faber in the anthology, INTRODUCTION 2: STORIES BY NEW WRITERS (1964).
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). In 1963, he began writing his only novel, LORD MALQUIST AND MR. MOON. The names Boot and Moon recur in many of Stoppard's works, generally with Boot being a character who makes things happen and Moon being a character to whom things happen.
While participating in a colloquium sponsored by the Ford Foundation in Berlin in 1964, Stoppard wrote a one-act play that later became ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD. The play, which focuses on two minor characters from HAMLET, examines the ideas of fate and free will. In August 1966, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD was performed by Oxford University students as part of the Edinburgh Festival fringe, and, at the same time, Stoppard's only novel was published; to Stoppard's surprise, it was the play that succeeded, establishing his reputation as a playwright. When the play, having caught the attention of Kenneth Tynan, was performed by the prestigious National Theatre Company at the Old Vic in London in 1967, it received immediate and widespread acclaim. Stoppard, at age 29, was a major success.
Of Stoppard's plays written over the next ten years, JUMPERS, produced in 1972, and TRAVESTIES, produced in 1974, are among the best known. DIRTY LINEN AND NEW-FOUND-LAND (1976) was written for Ed Berman, founder of the Inter-Action community arts organization, on the occasion of his being granted British citizenship.
By 1977, Stoppard had become concerned with human rights issues, in particular with the situation of political dissidents in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In February 1977, he visited Russia with a member of Amnesty International. In June, Stoppard met Vladimir Bukovsky in London and travelled to Czechoslovakia, where he met Václav Havel. 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's political concerns surfaced in his work. EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR (1977) was written at the request of André Previn and was inspired by a meeting with Russian exile Viktor Fainberg. The play, about a political dissident confined to a Soviet mental hospital, is accompanied by an orchestra using a musical score composed by Previn. PROFESSIONAL FOUL is a television play that Stoppard wrote over a period of three weeks as a contribution to Amnesty International's declaration of 1977 as Prisoner of Conscience Year.
Subsequent major stage plays by Stoppard include NIGHT AND DAY (1978), THE REAL THING, which was first performed in 1982 and is one of his most highly acclaimed plays, HAPGOOD (1988), ARCADIA (1993), and Stoppard's most recent play, INDIAN INK (1995), based upon his radio play IN THE NATIVE STATE (1991).
In addition to his original stage plays, Stoppard has written original screenplays, teleplays, and radio plays, as well as adaptations for the stage and screen. His screenplay of BRAZIL, coauthored by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985. Other well-known screenplays by Stoppard include EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987, adapted from the novel by J. G. Ballard), THE RUSSIA HOUSE (1989, adapted from the novel by John le Carre), and BILLY BATHGATE (1991, adapted from the novel by E. L. Doctorow), as well as a film version of his own ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD (1991). Stoppard also sometimes reads and contributes to scripts by other writers as favors to directors Kathleen Kennedy, Mike Nichols, and Steven Spielberg. Among teleplays by Stoppard, the best known is SQUARING THE CIRCLE: POLAND, 1980-81, a fictional documentary about the history of Solidarity.
THE DISSOLUTION OF DOMINIC BOOT (1964), Stoppard's first radio play, was the basis for his teleplay "The Engagement" (1970). ALBERT'S BRIDGE, produced by the BBC in 1967, has been called Stoppard's finest radio play.
Tom Stoppard has established an international reputation as a writer of "serious comedy"; his plays are plays of ideas that deal with philosophical issues, yet he combines the philosophical ideas he presents with verbal wit and visual humor. His linguistic complexity, with its puns, jokes, innuendo, and other wordplay, is a chief characteristic of his work.
Stoppard has been married twice, to Jose Ingle (1965-72), a nurse, and to Miriam Moore-Robinson (1972-92), the head of a pharmaceutical company, and he has two sons from each marriage.
Thomas Stoppard was originally born bearing the family name of Straussler. At that time, his family resided in Zlin (now Gottwaldov), Czechoslovakia. Just two years later the family was relocated in Singapore. In 1942, his father, Eugene Straussler, was killed during a Japanese invasion, and within the same year, Tom, his mother, and his brother were evacuated to India, where he attended an American run, English language school. 1946 was a year of changes for the Straussler family. First, they made their final move, which was to England. Tom also started school at Dolphin School in Nottinghamshire. Possibly the most dramatic change the Strausslers experienced was the marriage of Mrs. Straussler to Officer Kenneth Stoppard of the British army. Finally...Thomas Stoppard entered our world. From 1948-54, Tom proceded to finish his education at Pocklington School in Yorkshire.
After completing his preliminary education, he went on to devote the next six years to being a full-time journalist, reporting on film and theatre. He first became a "cub" reporter for the Western Daily Press in Bristol. After four years he moved on to work an additional two years for the Bristol Evening World. Between 1960 and 1964, Stoppard quit his reporting job to pursue his writing. His first endeavor was a stage play, A Wolk on the Water. Additionally, he worked as a dramatic critic for Scene magazine,now defunct , sold three short stories to Faber and Faber, earned a commission for a novel, had two fifteen minute radio plays, The Dissolution of Dominic Boot and 'M' is for Moon, Among Other Things (produced by the BBC), and wrote five episodes for the television series The Dales. He was invited to a colloquium for five months in West Berlin by the Ford Foundation. This is where he wrote the first draft of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In 1965, Stoppard gained his first recognition as a writer when the Royal Shakespeare Company took an option on a revised version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. During this same year, he also completed the radio plays Albert's Bridge and Artist Descending a Staircase. Stoppard's popularity grew in 1966 when the BBC broadcast his one-act radio play, If You're Glad, I'll Be Frank, his adaptation of Mrozek's Tango debuted at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and his novel, Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon was published. 1967 brought international acclaim came for Stoppard when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern debuted at the Old Vic. Just one year later, his first play, A Walk on the Water, finally reached the legitimate stage in a revised version, titled Enter a Free Man. From this time on, Tom Stoppard's career has continued to grow in popularity. To date, he has written 22 books, 41 plays (many of which are simply his books coming to life on the stage), and eleven screenplays. In recognition of his work, he has been honored with twelve different awards. Many of those awards were received multiple times, though. All in all, Stoppard has twenty awards to show for his efforts.
Tom Stoppard has been married twice, once in 1965 and again in 1971. His first marriage was to Jose Ingle, which lasted six years. Stoppard fathered two sons with Jose. In 1971, the marriage dissolved, and within the same year, Stoppard met and wed Dr. Miriam Moore-Robinson. The two also had two sons.
Bibliography:
A Tom Stoppard Bibliography (by Michael Hutchins)
Web Links:
Tom Stoppard (1937 - ) - http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc46.html
Biography of English playwright Tom Stoppard, plus links to all of his works currently in print.Tom Stoppard Bibliography - http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/9432/stoppard/index.html
Arranged by type of production.Well Furlong - Tom Stoppard - http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/wellfurlong/theatre/stoppard.htm
An appreciation of Stoppard's work.Travesties - The Stagecraft of Tom Stoppard - http://www.sff.net/people/mberry/stoppard.htp
Biographical note, synopses of works.Tom Stoppard from Eden Prairie High School
A very well-done site
Plays by Tom Stoppard:
A Walk on the Water
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot
"M" Is for Moon among Other Things
The Dog it Was That Died and Other Plays
The Gamblers
If You're Glad I'll Be Frank
Tango
A Separate Peace
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Albert's Bridge
Teeth
Another Moon Called Earth
Neutral Ground
The Real Inspector Hound
After Magritte
Where Are they Now?
Dogg's Our Pet
Jumpers
Artist Descending a Staircase
The House of Bernarda Alba
Travesties
Dirty Linen, and New-found-land
Albert's Bridge and Other Plays
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour: A Play for Actors and Orchestra
Professional Foul
Night and Day
Albert's Bridge Extended
Undiscovered Country
Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth
On the Razzle
The Real Thing
The Love for Three Oranges
Rough Crossing
Squaring the Circle: Poland 1980-81
Four Plays for Radio
Dalliance
Largo Desolato
Brazil
Hapgood
The Radio Plays 1964-1983
Arcadia
Indian Ink
The Invention of Love
