About
Fraser is co-ordinator of the MRes in Playwriting Studies.
Qualifications
Biography
Fraser was born and raised in the Midlands, and first came to the University as a social science student. Always a writer, on graduating he began working in the theatre as an actor/writer/driver/shifter in a small touring company, going on to tour as a performance poet, before heading back to the drama department and completing two postgraduate degrees. His plays include Perpetua, winner of the Verity Bargate Award, and Breakfast with Mugabe for the Royal Shakespeare Company, winner of the John Whiting Award and a Silver Sony Award when broadcast on BBC Radio 3. In 2005 he became director of the Writing Drama course at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and rejoins the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts as co-ordinator of the Playwriting Studies MRes. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and two sons.
Teaching
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MRes Playwriting modules; Dramatic Structure, Media Form and Genre, Writing in Context.
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Undergraduate course in playwriting (Second Semester).
Research
Fraser’s plays range from theatre for the solo actor (Gifts of War) to the large scale ensemble (King David Man of Blood), and cover a wide range of interests, spanning historical drama, through contemporary political thriller (Perpetua) to post-apocalyptic chiller (The Lifesavers).
A particular interest in bringing living figures to the stage has produced plays about Mugabe, Mandela, and most recently, Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK47 assault rifle. Kalashnikov in the woods by the lake begins its inaugural tour in October 2011.
Other activities
Fraser has previously served on the Theatre Committee of the Writers Guild of Great Britain, and as a school governor. He is an associate of Menagerie Theatre in Cambridge, and patron of Write On, a new writing organisation run by playwrights in the city. He has also written short fiction, and is currently working on an opera with the composer Andrew Lovett.
Publications
All Fraser’s plays are published by Oberon Books.