The Writer in Residence programme is part of the Bush Theatre’s commitment to celebrating legacy and providing opportunities for writers at every level of their career. In this post, Tanika Gupta will support the Bush Theatre’s literary and programming teams by mentoring emerging artists, as well as writing a full-length play during the course of her residency.
Over the past 25 years Tanika has written over 25 stage plays that have been produced in major theatres across the UK and has written extensively for BBC Radio drama. Tanika’s plays The Empress and her adaptation of A Doll’s House are on the National Curriculum in the UK for GSCE school examinations.
“I’m very excited to be the new Writer in Residence at the Bush – a theatre which I have long admired with an artistic team which has recently been spearheading exciting, fresh and diverse talent. The Bush Theatre is at the heart of nurturing new writing, giving voice to artists and stories which have been too often ignored in the mainstream. At a time when new writing is under threat, I look forward to working with the Bush and to supporting new talent.”
Tanika’s theatre credits include: Out West and A Doll’s House (Lyric Hammersmith); Lions And Tigers (Wanamaker Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe); Hobson’s Choice (Royal Exchange), Red Dust Road (National Theatre Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival); A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Hull Truck Theatre); Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe –Dramaturg); Anita and Me (Birmingham Rep); Love N Stuff (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Empress (Royal Shakespeare Company); Wah! Wah! Girls – A British Bollywood Musical (Sadler’s Wells); Mindwalking (Bandbazi Theatre); Great Expectations (Watford Palace/English Touring Theatre); Meet The Mukherjees (Bolton Octagon); White Boy (National Youth Theatre/Soho); Sugar Mummies (Royal Court); Gladiator Games (Sheffield Crucible); Hobson’s Choice (Young Vic); Fragile Land (Hampstead); Inside Out (Clean Break); Sanctuary, Brecht’s The Good Woman Of Setzuan and The Waiting Room (National Theatre); Skeleton (Soho); A River Sutra (Indoza).
Television credits include: Doctors, London Bridge, All About Me, EastEnders, Grange Hill, The Bill, Flight, Banglatown Banquet, Our Lives As Animals , The Fiancee and Bideshi.
Radio credits include: adaptations of Brick Lane ,Trumpet, A Passage to India, Emma , Pather Panchali (The Song of the Road), The God of Small things, A Doll’s House, The Home and The World. She has also written numerous original radio plays: The Goldilocks Zone, Death of a Matriarch, Writing The Century, The Parting, Rudolpho’s Zest, Bindi Business, Baby Farming, Asha and many others.
In 2008 she was awarded an MBE for Services to Drama and in 2016 was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Tanika has an honorary doctorate in the Arts from Chichester University and is an Honorary Fellow at Rose Bruford College and Central School of Speech and Drama.