Timberlake Wertenbaker
DOB - DOD
1951
Home Town
New York City, USA
Stage Debut
1978
Timberlake Wertenbaker was born in New York City in 1951 and raised in the Basque region of France. She moved to the UK in the 1970s, where she began her career in theatre. Wertenbaker is renowned for her exploration of historical and social themes, often focusing on language, power, and identity. Her breakthrough came with Our Country’s Good (1988), which won the Olivier Award for Best Play.
Wertenbaker was the resident writer for Shared Experience in 1983 and for the Royal Court Theatre from 1984 to 1985. She served on the Executive Council of the English Stage Company (1992–1997) and the Executive Committee of PEN (1998–2001). Wertenbaker held the Royden B. Davis professorship at Georgetown University for the 2005–06 academic year and was the Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the Freud Museum in 2011. She has also been the artistic director of New Perspective Theatre Company and currently holds the Chair in Playwriting at the University of East Anglia.
A central focus of Wertenbaker’s style is individuals, particularly women, striving for change, breaking boundaries, and challenging gender roles. Her work often reimagines historical or fictional lives, exploring themes of displacement and identity. Characters are frequently uprooted from familiar surroundings and forced to navigate new cultures, whether defined by national, class, or cultural divides. This leads to recurring themes of isolation and the struggle to forge identity in unfamiliar contexts. Wertenbaker’s work also addresses the limitations of language in expressing human experience, reflecting her nuanced approach to communication.
Weretenbaker spoke to Simon Stephens in S2 Ep15 of Playwright’s Podcast.
Works by Timberlake
Playwright at Your Table
2013Alexi Kaye Campbell , Brad Birch , Caryl Churchill , David Eldridge , Dennis Kelly , Hayley Squires , James Graham , John Donnelly , Laura Wade , Leo Butler , Mike Bartlett , Moira Buffini , Nick Payne , Penelope Skinner , Philip Ridley , Richard Bean , Robert Holman , Simon Stephens , Stephen Jeffreys , Timberlake Wertenbaker
