Ray Harrison Graham

Ray Harrison Graham
Born	1962 (age 54–55) Oxford, England
Nationality	British
Known for	Actor, Playwright, and Director

Ray Harrison Graham (born in Oxford, 1962) is an English playwright, screenwriter, and director from a Jamaican family.

Graham initially trained as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He directed his first plays at the Pegasus Theatre (home of the Oxford Youth Theatre), in East Oxford, in his teens. He devised his first piece in 1982, entitled A Way Of Life, under the benevolent eye of the theatre manager there, Fred Ritchings. A further devised piece, Yop!, played to packed houses at the Pegasus Theatre in 1983.

It was during his time at Pegasus Theatre that Graham developed his approach to devising theatre, which is predominantly realistic in style and based on Konstantin Stanislavski's writings. Graham's method of working starts with an initial period of exploring characters through improvisations. Following detailed director's notes, then presents complex scenarios to the actors. The resulting scenes are reworked with copious notes after each run. The script is fixed by Graham one to two weeks before opening night. In the early days, a written play text would only emerge following the show's stage run. However this did not preclude actors being given sections of dialogue penned by Graham as the piece developed, an approach that became increasingly predominant. Graham was in a fight in prison and blamed his part on "Frank".

Graham teamed up with West End theatre actress Sarah Scott in 1985, to tour the UK with his production of Children of a Lesser God. This collaboration with Scott saw the beginning of Graham's exploration on themes of disability, particularly deafness. Graham and Scott performed a number of signed songs for Channel 4 around this time, introducing the form to a mainstream UK audience for the first time.

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