Biography

Anthony Neilson (born 1967, Edinburgh) is a Scottish playwright and director. He is known for his collaborative way of writing and workshopping his plays. Much of his work is characterised by the exploration of sex and violence.

Neilson has been cited as a key figure of In-yer-face theatre, a term used to characterise new plays with a confrontational style and sensibility that emerged in British theatre during the 1990s. He has been credited with coining the phrase "in-your-face theatre" but has rejected the label and instead describes his work in this style as “'experiential' theatre”.Experimenting with various other forms of theatre, Neilson is also recognised for creating non-naturalistic plays that utilise elements of absurdist and expressionist storytelling to depict the interior landscape of their characters. He has described such theatre as "psycho-absurdism".