Zinnie Harris

Zinnie Harris is an award-winning British playwright, screenwriter and director currently living in Edinburgh.

Harris was born in Oxford in 1972 and brought up in Scotland. She studied Zoology at Oxford University, followed by an M.A. in Theatre Direction at Hull University. She has been commissioned and produced by the Royal Court Theatre, Royal National Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Shakespeare Company, amongst others.

Harris's first play By Many Wounds was produced by Hampstead Theatre in 1999, and was shortlisted for the Allied-Domecq and Meyer-Whitworth playwriting awards. Her second play, Further than the Furthest Thing was directed by Irina Brown and co-produced by the Tron Theatre, Glasgow and the Royal National Theatre, London in 2000. The play tells the story of the island of Tristan da Cunha and its inhabitants following a volcanic eruption in 1961. It won an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the Peggy Ramsay Award, and the John Whiting Award and was shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. The actress Paola Dionisotti won the Evening Standard Best Actress Award for her performance as Mill in the original production. In the same year Harris was shortlisted for the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award. Further than the Furthest Thing has been translated into multiple languages and performed across the globe, often being described as a "modern classic".

Her next play Nightingale and Chase, was produced by the Royal Court Theatre, London 2001 and co-commissioned by Clean Break. A trilogy of plays followed for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh - Solstice (2005), Midwinter (2004) and Fall (2008). Midwinter was given an Arts Foundation Fellowship Award for playwriting and shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. It has been performed many times in translation, notably at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Sweden (2005) and at La Cartoucherie, Paris (2010).

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