About / Bio
Sarah Grochala is an Anglo-Polish playwright based in London. She is currently Senior Lecturer, Writing for Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she leads the MA/MFA Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media.
Her play S-27 won the 2007 iceandfire/Amnesty International Protect the Human Playwriting Competition and was also shortlisted for the King’s Cross Award and the Leah Ryan Award for Emerging Women Writers. S-27 premiered at the Finborough Theatre, London in June 2009. Since its first production in 2009, S-27 has been revived nationally (Wardrobe Theatre Bristol, 2014) and internationally, including productions in Australia (Griffin Theatre, Sydney, 2010; Two Tall Theatre, Newcastle, 2016; Feet First Collective, Freemantle, 2019 and Adelaide 2020) and Canada (Intersection Theatre Toronto, 2012). S-27 is published by Oberon books and has been translated into Hebrew and French.
Sarah’s other plays include Waiting for Romeo (Romeo’yu Beklerken), which ran in rep at Tiyatro Yan Etki, Istanbul from 2014 to 2016, winning the 2015 Ekin Yazin Dostları Theatre Award for Best Play (Small Venue). In 2011, she won OffWestEnd.com’s Adopt a Playwright Award for her play Smolensk. Her most recent play Star Fish was shortlisted for the 2016 Nick Darke Award and BBC Script Room 10.
Between 2012 and 2016, Sarah was an Associate Artist with the theatre company Headlong, where she worked on creating theatrical experiences using digital media.  Her work as a writer has been supported and developed by The National Theatre Studio, Royal Shakespeare Company, The Orange Tree, Criterion New Writing Programme, Arts Council England, The Peggy Ramsay Foundation, The Orchard Project (USA), The Studios Key West (USA) and OffWestEnd.com. She is currently a member of the Sphinx 30. Alongside her playwriting, she writes Dr Who and The Avengers audio dramas for Big Finish productions.
Sarah’s first book, The Contemporary Political Play, was published by Methuen Drama in 2017 Prize and shortlisted for the TaPRA Early Career Research Prize. Her second book The Theatre of Rupert Goold was published by Methuen Drama in 2020. In 2018, she was recently awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award for a project exploring the lack of contemporary European plays in translation on British Stages. Her research work has also been nominated for the Philip Leverhulme Prize.
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Selected Reviews
 ‘Director Abigail Graham and performer Jennifer Jackson make the most of Sarah Grochala’s The Red Shoes, an astonishingly direct yet poetic piece of writing, a perfect miniature that explores desire and madness in London’s Westfield shopping centre.’ Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
‘S-27 is almost unrelentingly bleak but the taut script and powerful performances are mesmerising. It’s a play that lingers in the mind long after the curtain has fallen.’ Gina Flaxman, Time Out Sydney
‘Sarah Grochala’s play, inspired by stories of those who survived the Khmer Rouge, is a blistering account of the things that we will do to save our own skins, and the way the human heart betrays us. It says a great deal about the systems and structures of new writing in UK theatres that Grochala’s nugget of a play has been lying around for two years unproduced. At its best it reminds us of Pinter and Bond’ Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
Awards
2018 Shortlisted TAPRA Early Career Research Prize (The Contemporary Political Play)
2018 British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award
2016 Shortlisted for the Nick Darke Award (Star Fish)
2016 Shortlisted for BBC Writers Room Script Room 10 (Star Fish)
2016 Longlisted for the Theatre 503 Playwriting Award – Top 30 (Star Fish)
2015 Longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize – Top 40 (Star Fish)
2015 Shortlisted for the Old Vic Twelve
2015 Best Play (Small Venue), Ekin Yazin Dostları Theatre Awards (Waiting for Romeo)
2011 Winner of the Off West End.com Adopt a Playwright Award (Smolensk)
2010 Time Out Sydney Critics’ Choice (S-27)
2010 Finalist Leah Ryan Prize for Emerging Women Writers (S-27)
2009 Time Out London Critics’ Choice (S-27)
2007 Winner of the Amnesty Protect the Human Playwriting Competition (S-27)
2007 Shortlisted for the King’s Cross Award (S-27)
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Attachments and Residencies
2020-21Â Â Sphinx 30
2020 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Orchard Project Liveness Lab (USA)
2018 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Criterion New Writing Programme
2016/17   Member of the Orange Tree Writers’ Collective
2015 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Artist in Residence, The Studios Key West (USA)
2015 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Resident Artist, The Orchard Project (USA)
2013/14   Writer’s Attachment, National Theatre Studio (a series of minor incidents)
Publications – Plays
S-27 (London: Oberon, 2009)
Publications – Books
The Theatre of Rupert Goold (London: Methuen Drama, 2020)
The Contemporary Political Play (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017)
Productions – Full Length Plays
2020   S-27                                       Adelaide Festival                    dir. Teresa Izzard
2019   S-27                                       Freemantle Festival                 dir. Teresa Izzard
2016  S-27         The Royal Exchange, Newcastle, Australia           dir. Nick Wood
2015   Waiting for Romeo      Tiyatro Mavra, Adana, Turkey          dir. Ali Haydar Bozkurt
2014-16 Waiting for Romeo             Tiyatro Yan Etki, Istanbul       dir. Serkan Üstüner
2012  S-27                                       Annex Theatre, Toronto          dir. Yolanda Ferrato
2010   S-27                                       Griffin Theatre, Sydney          dir. Caroline Craig
2009   S-27                                       Finborough, London               dir. Steve Keyworth
2009   Waiting for Romeo                Pleasance Islington, London   dir. Nina Brazier
2006   Waiting for Romeo                Hill Street, Edinburgh             dir. Nina Brazier
2006   Waiting for Romeo                RADA, London                       dir. Nina Brazier
2005   Open Ground                        Theatro Technis, London        dir. John Lee
Productions – Short Plays
2020   How Not to Get Raped and Murdered    White Bear, London   dir. Mingyu Lu
2017   Not Us                                   Orange Tree, London              dir. Ola Ince
2015   Alexandria n.                        Ark Short Stories, London      dir. Sarah Grochala
2014   Little Mermaid        Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff  dir. Julia Wyndham
2014   The Shadow                          Soho Theatre, London             dir. Abigail Graham
2013   Red Shoes                              Ulster Hall, Belfast                  dir. AislÃnn Clarke
2012   Red Shoes                              Belfast Festival                        dir. AislÃnn Clarke
2012   Emperor’s New Clothes        Cockpit Theatre, London        dir. Dominic Kelly
2012  Red Shoes         Arches, Glasgow             dir. Abigail Graham
2012  Red Shoes         Theatre 503, London         dir. Abigail Graham
2012  Red Shoes          Chapter Arts, Cardiff        dir. Abigail Graham
2011   The Beautiful Ones               Latitude Festival                      dir. Derek Bond
2010   Standing Out of the Light     Tristan Bates, London             dir. Abigail Graham
2010   Altogether Now                     Theatre 503, London               dir. Jack McNamara
2010   Standing Out of the Light     Old Joint Stock, Birmingham dir. Abigail Graham
2010   Skin                                       Arcola, London                      dir. Zena Birch
2010   Standing Out of the Light     Theatre 503, London               dir. Abigail Graham
2010   Remains                                RADA, London                       dir. Nina Brazier
2010   Accountable       Theatre 503, London               dir. Jacqui Honess-Martin
2010   The Return                            Birmingham University          dir. Naomi Cooke
2009   Remains                                Theatre 503, London               dir. Antonio Ferrara
2008   Viable Alternatives               Green Man Festival                 dir. Vicky Graham
2008   Gift              King’s Head, London              dir. Robert Wolstenholme
2004   Open Ground                        Hampstead Theatre, London   dir. Andrew Loudon
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Rehearsed Readings
2019   Intelligence                           Criterion Theatre                     dir. Guy Jones
2017   Intelligence                           NT Studio/Orange Tree           dir. Guy Jones
2013   Home Free                            Finborough Theatre                 dir. Stasi Schaeffer
2012   Smolensk                               Theatre Royal Haymarket       dir. Abigail Graham
2011   Sihanoukville (Star Fish)      Finborough, London               dir. Eleanor Rhode
2010   Waiting for Romeo                Teatr Ludowy, Krakow           dir. Anna Kerth
2010   Martyrs of Warsaw               Finborough, London               dir. Steve Keyworth
2010   Remains          Theater Chemnitz, Chemnitz    dir. Svetlana Dimcovic
2010   Waiting for Romeo                Klub Żak, Gdańsk                   dir. Anna Kerth
2008   Halfway Out                          Tristan Bates, London             dir. Anouke Brook
2007   S-27                                       Soho Theatre, London             dir. Sara Masters
2006   Waiting for Romeo                RADA, London                       dir. Nina Brazier
Radio/Audio Drama
2024   The Face in the Storm           Big Finish                                dir. TBC
2021   Outback                                 Big Finish                                dir. Helen Goldwyn
2021   Off Grid                                 Big Finish                                dir. Ken Bentley
2021   Mother’s Day                        Big Finish                                dir. Samuel Clemens
2021   The Hollow Crown               Big Finish                              dir. Ken Bentley
2020   Do No Harm                         Big Finish                                dir. Ken Bentley
2019   Narcissus                             Big Finish                               dir. Helen Goldwyn
2009   Covent Garden                     Theatre Voice/Theatre 503     dir. Tim Roseman
Streaming
2020-21    S-27          #FinboroughForFree               dir. Stephen Keyworth
2020        Little Mermaid                 Papercut Goes Zoom               dir. Melissa Dunne
Digital
2020   Digital Natives (R&D)     Potential Difference                              Writer
2016   What’s She Like               Headlong/Coney                                    Writer/Curator
2014   The Nether Realm     Headlong/Royal Court      Dramaturg/Curator
2014   PRISM                              Headlong/Cultural Institute at King’s   Curator
2013   1984 Digital Double    Headlong/Cultural Institute at King’s   Collaborator