Patricia Cumper

Background

Cumper grew up in Jamaica, with her English father and Jamaican mother.

Career

While there, Cumper was a College Exhibitioner and was awarded a full swimming Blue, and captained the team After graduating, Cumper returned to Jamaica, where she became a playwright, before returning to Britain in 1993 to continue her career. In 2013 she was awarded an Administration Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the arts

Cumper has written a large number of plays both for the stage and radio, episodes of Westway, short stories, and a novel, One Bright Child, published in 1998.

Cumper began writing after watching a play of which she was critical, and being challenged to do better. She continued to write and also produced plays, winning four awards for her work, which was produced in the Caribbean, the United States of America and Canada.

She moved to Britain in 1993 to pursue her career. Cumper worked for the United Kingdom"s largest Black-led theatre company, Talawa, from about 1999, as a writer, script reader, tutor, assistant director and dramaturge.

She became artistic director of Talawa in 2006 and stepped down in 2012, after overseeing their 25th anniversary season.

Cumper became a trustee of the British Museum in 2013. In January 2015, Cumper"s adaptation of Toni Morrison"s novel Beloved was broadcast in ten episodes by British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4 as part of its 15 Minute Drama programme.

Achievements

• She followed her parents to study at Cambridge University, for which she won a scholarship, to study Archaeology and Anthropology at Girton College. She wrote a play called The Rapist, which ran for six months and won an award.