Gerda Stevenson

I was born and brought up in Scotland, where I live, near Edinburgh. I trained at the Royal Scadey of Dramatic Art, London, where I won the Vanbrugh Award. I’ve worked for over thirty years as actor/writer/director in theatre, radio, TV, film and opera throughout Britain and abroad. My poetry and prose have been published widely, and in 2008 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer’s Bursary. My play Federer versus Murray, was shortlisted for the 2010 London Fringe Theatre Writing Awards, and was runner up for Best Scottish Contribution to Drama on the Edinburgh Fringe, 2011. I was nominated by the International Committee of the League of Professional Theatre Women for the Gilder/Coigney Award, 2011. I’ve written plays for BBC Radio, and have dramatized many classic Scottish novels for radio, including Sir Walter Scott’s epic novel The Heart of Midlothian, nominated for a Sony Award. I won a Bafta Best Film Actress Award for her role in Margaret Tait’s feature film Blue Black Permanent, and have been was twice nominated in the Best Actress category for the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland. My many film and TV appearances include Braveheart, and The Boyhood of John Muir (for P.B.S, U.S.A.). My short film, An Iobairt/The Sacrifice (in the Scottish Gaelic language), was awarded an Honourable Mention at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival. She has directed many productions for theatre, including plays by award-winning writers Jackie Kay, Rona Munro and Carol K. Mack. In 2007, at Voice and Vision, Bard College, New York, I directed the first workshop and play reading of Seven, a documentary theatre piece to benefit Vital Voices Global Partnership. I am the founder of Stellar Quines, Scotland’s leading women’s theatre company, and Associate Director of Communicado. I am also a trustee of the Scottish International Education Trust.