Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard (born Tomáš Sträussler; 3 July 1937 – 29 November 2025) was a British playwright and screenwriter. He wrote for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covered the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical bases of society. Stoppard, a playwright of the Royal National Theatre, was one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation and was critically compared with William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre in 1997 and awarded the Order of Merit in 2000.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a Jewish child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He spent three years at a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas, then settled with his family in England after the war, in 1946. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.

Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006), and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the BBC/HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), adapting his own 1966 play as its screenplay, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.

Stoppard received numerous accolades including an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Shakespeare in Love, three Laurence Olivier Awards, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". His final play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna, premiered in 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. It won the 2020 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2023 Tony Award for Best Play.