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Notes from a Working-Class Playwright
Theatre Makers (Related to this series)
- Author
- Leo Butler
- Narrator
- Leo Butler
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 27 November 2025
- Run Time
- 7 hours 47 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Award-winning British playwright, Leo Butler looks back over 25 of writing for the stage and his extensive experience teaching and mentoring emerging playwrights through the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme.
With honesty and humour, Leo Butler shares his experiences from his working-class upbringing in Sheffield, including his disastrous state education, his years on the dole, to his breakthrough into the professional theatre industry.
This personal account criss-crosses his life and career, exploring the influences and experiences that informed critically acclaimed plays such as Redundant, I'll Be the Devil, Lucky Dog and, more recently, Boy.
Throughout, Butler includes a wealth of tips and practical exercises, tried and tested on his students, to help the reader with their own playwriting development; discusses the challenges of how to actually make a living from this work; and considers how the landscape has changed today from 25 years ago.
Through recollections of collaborations with professional peers and ex-students (including Polly Stenham, Anya Reiss, and Nick Payne), Leo Butler gives an insight into the intricacies of the early 21st century theatre scene in which playwriting skills were developed and shared. He also includes excerpts from personal rejection letters, rehearsal notes and his notebooks to bring his playwriting journey to life.
Brutally honest, often surreal, often funny, this book will entertain and inspire anyone who has ever thought of writing, a play, or is interested in the life and practice of a playwright.
Critics Review
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Both a practical guide to playwriting and a memoir, Butler talks eloquently about childhood and place (he was raised in Sheffield) as an endless deep well for him to draw on as a playwright.
The Stage
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For me, [Leo] Butler is a poet of the human damage of poverty. His language is terse and fractured. He reminds me as much of Emily Dickinson as he does of many playwrights. He is, I think, as close as English theatre has come to the master of Bavarian naturalism Franz Xavier Kroetz.
Simon Stephens, playwright
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This book is much more than an autobiography ... Filling you with the feeling of creativity unleashed … Notes from a Working-Class Playwright is a really fine book about playwriting that’s both fascinating as a life story and compelling as a series of good ideas, all of which glitter in the mind long after you’ve put down the volume.
Aleks Sierz
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A really fine book about playwriting that’s both fascinating as a life story and compelling as a series of good ideas, all of which glitter in the mind long after you’ve put down the volume.
Aleks Sierz Blog
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Butler offers humour and pragmatism throughout … Aspiring playwrights will find Notes From a Working-Class Playwright a perceptive text.
Lou Reviews Blog
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Leo Butler
- Narrator
- Leo Butler
- Duration
- 7 hours 47 minutes
- Release Date
- 27 November 2025
- ISBN
- 9781350597297
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Theatre studies, Theatre direction and production, Performing arts, Literary studies: from c 2000
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents Notes from a Working-Class Playwright, written and read by Leo ButlerAward-winning British playwright, Leo Butler looks back over 25 of writing for the stage and his extensive experience teaching and mentoring emerging playwrights through the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme. With honesty and humour, Leo Butler shares his experiences from his working-class upbringing in Sheffield, including his disastrous state education, his years on the dole, to his breakthrough into the professional theatre industry. This personal account criss-crosses his life and career, exploring the influences and experiences that informed critically acclaimed plays such as Redundant, I'll Be the Devil, Lucky Dog and, more recently, Boy. Throughout, Butler includes a wealth of tips and practical exercises, tried and tested on his students, to help the reader with their own playwriting development; discusses the challenges of how to actually make a living from this work; and considers how the landscape has changed today from 25 years ago. Through recollections of collaborations with professional peers and ex-students (including Polly Stenham, Anya Reiss, and Nick Payne), Leo Butler gives an insight into the intricacies of the early 21st century theatre scene in which playwriting skills were developed and shared. He also includes excerpts from personal rejection letters, rehearsal notes and his notebooks to bring his playwriting journey to life. Brutally honest, often surreal, often funny, this book will entertain and inspire anyone who has ever thought of writing, a play, or is interested in the life and practice of a playwright.
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