Authors

Tena Štivičić (Zagreb, 1977) is an author, dramaturg, columnist and editor. She graduated from the Academy of Drama Art, Department of Dramaturgy, Zagreb, after which she moved to the United Kingdom and continued her studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. After obtaining a Master’s Degree, she was invited to Switzerland on a six-month writing residency in Canton Bern.

Tena’s first play was the award-winning Can't Escape Sundays. Following numerous stage, radio productions and publications in various European countries, it remains one of her most produced plays to this day. Her play The Two of Us, first produced in 2003 at the legendary Atelje 212 Theatre, Belgrade, was the first new Croatian play to be performed on a Belgrade stage since the break-up of Yugoslavia. This hit production won The Audience Award at the Marulićevi dani Festival in Split, Croatia, and the play received several other publications and productions.

Inspired by her first year living in London, Tena wrote the acclaimed play Fragile!, which enjoyed productions at London’s Arcola Theatre, on BBC Radio 4, and a number of stage and radio productions performed around Europe. It won numerous awards, including best European Play and Innovations Award at Heidelberg Stückemarkt in Germany in 2008. As part of The 50 – a Royal Court Theatre and BBC initiative to mark the 50th anniversary of The Royal Court Theatre, Tena was nominated as one of the fifty most promising young writers in Great Britain.

Her play Invisible, commissioned by Transport and The New Wolsey Theatre, toured England in 2011 and 2012. A feature film screenplay inspired by the play is due to go into production with Good and George Films. Her play Three Winters opened to great critical acclaim at the National Theatre in London in 2014. It was directed by Howard Davies and won the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for 2015.

Over the years, she has taken part in several multi-national, multi-authored projects. Tena Štivičić is currently the Croatian patron at Neue Stücke aus Europa Festival, Wiesbaden. Tena writes in English and Croatian and lives with her husband, actor Douglas Henshall.