Tom Stoppard
Birth name: Thomas Straussler
Date of birth: 3 July 1937, Zlín, Czechoslovakia. (now in Czech Republic)
Playwrite, Director.
His family moved to India to escape World War Two. His father died in Singapore, and his mother married a British officer, renaming the family "Stoppard" and moving to England in 1946. He started writing at seventeen, working in journalism from 1956-1960, starting a career as a drama critic (later lampooned in The Real Inspector Hound), which then lead to his working in theater, television, and radio.
His plays have been highly acclaimed for their humor, existentialism, and, in plays like Arcadia, forays into complex mathematics.
A Bibliography
Plays for the Stage:
A Walk on the Water (Written in 1960. Revised in 1968 as Enter a Free Man) Unpublished
The Gamblers (First performed at the University of Bristol, 1965) Unpublished
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966)
Enter a Free Man (1968)
The Real Inspector Hound (1968)
After Magritte (1970)
Dogg's Our Pet (later combined with The (15 Minute) Dogg's Troupe Hamlet to form Dogg's Hamlet, 1979)
Jumpers (1972)
Travesties (1974)
The (15 Minute) Dogg's Troup Hamlet (1976. This play was combined with Dogg's Our Pet to become Dogg's Hamlet, 1979)
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (A stage play with orchestra, music written by Andre Previn. 1977)
Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land (1976)
Night and Day (1978)
Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth (Two one-act plays intended to be performed together; 1979)
The Real Thing (1982)
Hapgood (1988)
Artist Descending a Staircase (Based on his radio play of 1972)
Arcadia (1993)
Indian Ink (based on his 1991 radio play In the Native State)
The Invention of Love (1997)
Screenplays/Television:
Enigma (2001)
Vatel (2000) (English adaptation)
Shakespeare in Love (1998) (written by)
Poodle Springs (1998) (TV) (teleplay)
The Fifteen Minute Hamlet (1995) (play)
Billy Bathgate (1991) (screenplay)
Largo Desolato (1990/II) (TV)
The Russia House (1990)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
The Dog It Was That Died (1988) (TV)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Brazil (1985)
Squaring the Circle (1984) (TV)
Konsert för en sluten avdelning (1984) (TV)
The Human Factor (1980)
Despair (1978) aka Despair - Eine Reise ins Licht (1978)
Professional Foul (1977) (TV)
Three Men in a Boat (1975) (TV)
Romantic Englishwoman (1975) aka Une anglaise romantique (1975) (France)
Neutral Ground (1968) (TV)
Another Moon Called Earth (1967) (TV)
Teeth (1967) (TV) aka Thirty-Minute Theatre: Teeth (1967) (TV)
A Separate Peace (1966) (TV)
On the Razzle (????) (TV)
Radio Plays:
The Dissolution of Dominic Boot (BBC 1964. television as The Engagement, 1970)
'M' is for Moon Among Other Things (BBC 1964)
The Dales (serial--Stoppard wrote five episodes in 1965)
If You're Glad I'll Be Frank (BBC 1966)
A Student's Diary: An Arab in London (serial--Stoppard wrote seventy episodes. 1966-1967)
Albert's Bridge (Broadcast by the BBC in 1967)
Where Are They Now? (BBC 1970)
Artist Descending a Staircase (BBC 1972)
The Dog It Was That Died (BBC 1982. television in 1988)
In the Native State (BBC 1991. Adapted for the stage as Indian Ink, 1995)
Arcadia (Radio adaptation of his stage play of 1993.)
Three Men in a Boat (1994) (Radio adaptation of his television play of 1976)
Adaptations and Translations:
Tango (An adaptation of Nicholas Bethell's translation of the play by Slawomir Mrozek. 1966)
The House of Bernarda Alba (Adaptation of the play by Federico Garcia Lorca. 1973) Unpublished
Undiscovered Country (Translation of Das Weite Land by Arthur Schnitzler. 1979)
On the Razzle (An adaptation of Einen Jux will er sich machen by Johann Nestroy. 1981)
The Love for Three Oranges (Liubov' k trem apel'sinam (An opera by Sergei Prokofiev; libretto by the composer based on Amore delle tre melarance by Carlo Gozzi; 1983)
Rough Crossing (An adaptation of Play at the Castle by Ferenc Molnar. 1984)
Dalliance (Translation of Liebelei by Arnold Schnitzler. 1986)
Largo Desolato (Translation of the play by Vaclav Havel. 1987)
The Merry Widow (Die Lustige Witwe) (English narration for the opera by Franz Lehár. 1993)
The Seagull (An adaptation of the play by Anton Chekhov)
Fiction:
"Reunion"
"Life, Times: Fragment"
"The Story" (in Introduction 2: Stories by New Writers)
Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon (Novel)
Actor - filmography
Poodle Springs (1998) (TV)
Director - filmography
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)