Anna Jordan

Anna Jordan is a British playwright, director, and acting tutor based in North-East London. She trained as an actor at LAMDA but, in search of better financial stability, transitioned into writing and directing. This shift led her to establish Without a Paddle Theatre, a network and award-winning theatre company.

After seven years of dedicated writing and self-producing, Jordan’s career reached a turning point in 2013 when she won the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting with her play Yen. This accolade opened new opportunities, including a shortlisting for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2015–2016. Her work has been showcased at The Royal Court, The Royal Exchange, and MCC in New York. She has been in collaboration with Frantic Assembly, Headlong, and Paines Plough.

In television, Jordan has developed a series with Little Brother Productions and has worked with HBO and the BBC. As a director, she has contributed to productions at Theatre503, Soho Theatre, and the National Theatre’s Shed. Notably, she directed Jonathan Harvey’s Tomorrow I’ll Be Happy for the National Theatre Connections programme in 2013.

Jordan has taught, directed, and written for institutions including Italia Conti, ArtsEd, RADA, LAMDA, Central School of Speech and Drama, and Identity School of Acting. She co-runs Hackney Showroom Young Actors, a free weekly drama training programme for young people, and oversees Without a Paddle Theatre’s WAP Workout for professional actors, currently led by Ned Bennett.

An advocate for social causes, Jordan supports the charity Phone Credit for Refugees, which provides essential communication resources to refugees. She is represented by Camilla Young at Curtis Brown and Scott Chaloff at WME in the United States.

Jordan’s writing influences include Sarah Kane and Anton Chekhov.