Fin Kennedy - Biography

Award-winning investigative playwright and playwrighting teacher

Fin is a graduate of the MA Writing for Performance programme at Goldsmiths College, London.

His first play Protection was produced at Soho Theatre in 2003, where he was also Pearson writer-in-residence.

His second play How To Disappear Completely & Never Be Found won the 38th Arts Council John Whiting Playwrighting Award, the first time in 40 years that an unproduced play had won. It was subsequently commissioned by Sam West for Sheffield Crucible and produced to huge critical acclaim. It has since been produced in London, Melbourne, New Zealand the United States, and is becoming a firm favourite with amateur and student performance groups around the UK.

Fin's first play for teenagers, Locked In, a hip-hop musical about pirate radio, was produced by Half Moon Young People’s Theatre in 2006 and 2008 and toured nationally, subsequently being awarded the runner-up prize in the 2008 Brian Way Award. Fin's second play for Half Moon, We Are Shadows, was subsequently commissioned and toured during autumn 2007. 2008 also saw Fin's first radio commission CAESAR PRICE OUR LORD for BBC Radio 4.

For the past four years he has been writer-in-residence at Mulberry School for Girls in Tower Hamlets, where he is co-founder of Mulberry Theatre Company, for whom he has written four plays. Mehndi Night (2007), Stolen Secrets (2008) and TheUnravelling (2009) all premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, while The Urban Girl’s Guide To Camping premiered at Southwark Playhouse in 2010 as part of the SILKWORKS Festival, which Fin also co-produced. All four plays are published in a volume by Nick Hern Books.

As well as writing plays Fin also has many years of experience teaching playwrighting at secondary, sixth from, undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has worked for schools, youth clubs, local authorities and theatre education teams in inner city London and beyond, and is also a visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths College and Boston University. He writes regularly for The Guardian newspaper’s online Theatre blog.

Fin is currently developing a play for Birmingham Rep and a site specific piece for the 2011 Brighton Festival.

'This is as good as theatre gets.'
The Stage on How To Disappear

'Real excitement lies in discovering a young writer who is more concerned with major political issues than minor domestic upsets.'
The Guardian on Protection

'One of the best writer/education partnerships there is'
The Scotsman on Fin Kennedy and Mulberry Theatre Company