Polly Stenham

She began a degree in English at University College London, but abandoned her place to work on her debut play after hearing it was to be staged and following the death of her father in 2006.

Stenham's debut play That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in April 2007. It was directed by Jeremy Herrin and starred Lindsay Duncan as the alcoholic mother Martha and Matt Smith as her son Henry. Stenham won the Evening Standard's 2007 Charles Wintour Award, the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the 2007 Theatrical Management Association Award for Best New Play.

Stenham represented the Royal Court at the 2007 Latitude Festival before That Face transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2008 with largely the same cast and again under Jeremy Herrin's direction.

Her second play, Tusk Tusk premiered in the downstairs theatre at the Royal Court in March 2009 directed by Jeremy Herrin.

In 2011 Stenham, along with friend Victoria Williams, opened an art gallery, the Cob Studios and Gallery in Camden, London.

In 2013 her third play No Quarter was staged at the Royal Court, directed by Jeremy Herrin and starring Tom Sturridge.

In 2013 film director Nicolas Winding Refn confirmed I Walk With the Dead as his next project and that Polly Stenham was confirmed to write the screenplay with Refn. They stated that the film will have an all female cast. Refn admitted that he asked Stenham to write the screenplay to tackle his own perceived inability to write female characters. The project was later renamed The Neon Demon and was released in June 2016 to mixed reviews.

In 2014 her fourth play Hotel was staged at Lyttleton Theatre, The National Theatre, directed by Maria Aberg.

In 2017 Walter & Zoniel's portrait of Polly was hung at the National Portrait Gallery and in 2018 Polly was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.

In 2018, Julie, her adaptation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie, was staged at Lyttleton Theatre, directed by Carrie Cracknell and starring Vanessa Kirby and Eric Kofi AbrefaIn.

In October 2019 her first collection, Plays I, comprising her first four plays, That Face, Tusk Tusk, No Quarter and Hotel was published by Faber & Faber.

Stenham was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to theatre and literature.