Tom Stoppard, Czech-English playwright and screenwriter
Sir Tom Stoppard (born Tomáš Sträussler, 3 July 1937) is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, Travesties, The Invention of Love, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Stoppard co-wrote the screenplays for Brazil, The Russia House, and Shakespeare in Love, and has received an Academy Award, an Olivier, and four Tony Awards. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the three years prior (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre with Patrick Marber directing. In October 2020, it won the Olivier Award for Best New Play.
1937Jul, 3
Tom Stoppard
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Events on 1937
- 23Jan
Leon Trotsky
The trial of the anti-Soviet Trotskyist center sees seventeen mid-level Communists accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky and plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime. - 21Feb
Spanish Civil War
The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War. - 12May
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey. - 27May
Golden Gate Bridge
In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California. - 22Jul
Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937
New Deal: The United States Senate votes down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.