Tanika Gupta
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Tanika Gupta MBE |
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|---|---|
| Born |
1 December 1963 Chiswick, Hounslow, London, England |
| Residence | Kentish Town, London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Modern History |
| Alma mater | Oxford University |
| Occupation | Playwright, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Known for | Theatre, television |
| Style | Drama, radio drama, screenplay |
| Spouse(s) | David Archer (m. 1988) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent(s) | Tapan Gupta (father) Gairika Gupta (mother) |
| Relatives | Pritish Gupta (paternal grandfather) Dinesh Chandra Gupta (maternal great uncle) |
| Website | www |
Tanika Gupta, MBE (born 1 December 1963) is an English playwright of Bengali descent. Apart from her work for the theatre, she has also written scripts for television and radio plays.
As a child, Gupta performed Tagore dance dramas with her parents. Her mother Gairika Gupta was an Indian classically trained dancer, and her father Tapan Gupta was a singer. She is also related to the Indian revolutionary Dinesh Gupta, whose brother was Tanika's grandfather.
After attending Mill Hill School in London, Gupta graduated from Oxford University with a Modern History degree. After Oxford, her political commitment found expression in her work for an Asian women's refuge in Manchester. In 1988, she married David Archer an anti-poverty activist and ActionAid’s current Head of Programme Development, whom she met at university. She and her husband then moved to London where Gupta was a community worker in Islington, writing in her spare time until she became a full-time writer in 1996.
The Waiting Room (2000) was a breakthrough moment, enjoyed by blue-rinses as well as by Asian audiences at the National Theatre. Gupta is a prolific writer of original plays for stage having over 20 plays published and produced in theatres such as the National Theatre, Royal Court, RSC, Young Vic, Theatre Royal Stratford East etc. Her first collection, Tanika Gupta: Political Plays is published by Oberon and a second collection is due soon. In 2013, her play The Empress, about Abdul Karim and Queen Victoria opened at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon. She has also written over 30 original radio plays for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and BBC World Service. Tanika's film and television work ranges from scriptwriting for classic series to writing original screenplays. For example for the BBC's Grange Hill series, Gupta wrote seven episodes between 1997 and 2000. Tanika has taught writing courses at Royal Holloway College, University of London and at the Central School of Speech and Drama, as well as running weeklong writer retreats for the Arvon Foundation and doing occasional seminars in Glasgow and at Oxford University. She has also run writing workshops in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Cuba and the USA.
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