Portraits of Playwrights: Simon Annand's new Bruntwood Prize exhibition reveals where Tom Stoppard, Johnny Vegas and David Hare write

In the shed, the kitchen or the bath – where playwrights go to work

Sarah Solemani likes to write in the bath or in bed at home in Stoke Newington (Simon Annand)

Where do British playwrights write and find inspiration? Tom Stoppard scribbled away in the National Theatre script office (with a pen) while working on his latest play, The Hard Problem, while Sarah Solemani likes to write in the bath or in bed at home in Stoke Newington.

An exhibition of photographs by Simon Annand of Britain’s leading dramatists opens next week in Manchester to mark the 10th anniversary of the Bruntwood Prize for playwriting. “The initial brief was to photograph them where they work and where they are inspired, but it became more complicated when they said, ‘Oh, in the South of France…’ , so I tried to improvise a bit at their homes or in their offices,” says Annand.

The exhibition includes intimate new portraits of David Hare, in his spacious, light-filled study in a former sculptor’s studio in Hampstead. Posters of his plays, including The Judas Kiss (1998) and The Secret Rapture (1988) hang from the mezzazine banister, alongside a film poster for Graham Greene’s The Fallen Idol.

“He feels very lucky to have this studio and use it for where he writes his plays,” says Annand. “It had the atmosphere of a writer who has done a large body of work. But I try not to make writers look like writers otherwise everybody looks the same. I just asked him to forget about the camera and do some work.”

The playwright Simon Stephens, who adapted The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time for the stage, winning the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2013, is seen writing at his computer at home in London’s East End, with his cats leaping around him. He was working on Carmen Disruption which has just opened at the Almeida Theatre. “He had unfortunately lost his keyring and fob with about six months of work on it, so he was very generous to let me continue, as he had other things on his mind. I tried not to delay him,” says Annand. “His office looks disorganised to me but he knows where everything is.”

The actor and comedian Johnny Vegas, whose plays include And Another Thing, about a shopping channel, which premiered at the 2011 Manchester International Festival, is photographed looking out of the window of a large purple hut in the garden of his new home in Richmond. “There wasn’t much in it then except a table and chairs but it was his own little place that he was going to adapt into a place to write,” says Annand.

He also hired Vegas a rowing boat and snapped him on the River Thames. “It was in the middle of winter and quite windy. I was a bit concerned he might drift down river before we took the picture because there was a very strong tide. He liked to be near water – it gave him ideas.”

The Olivier Award-winner Bola Agbaje (Gone Too Far!) is photographed on her balcony at home looking out over the Peckham streets that inspire her. “She goes out at dusk and looks at the big city sky for inspiration,” Annand recalls. “Seeing her sitting out there, writing notes, made me think of people sitting on their porches in Louisiana.”

Tom Stoppard scribbled away in the National Theatre script office (Simon Annand)

Roy Williams, whose plays include Fallout (2003), Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads (2002), and Sucker Punch (2010) spreads his work out on his large kitchen table, next to the Marmite, at home in Greenwich. He is also photographed in his living room, balancing a baseball bat on the end of his fingers. “He told me he spends a lot of time balancing his baseball bat to give him a sense of focus,” says Annand. “I had also photographed him 10 years ago when he was a new playwright and I could see how he had moved to a better place, now he has grown more successful.”

The poet and playwright Jackie Kay is photographed at a cafe in Manchester where she likes to work with the dramatic Grade II-listed Oxford Road train station behind her. “I wanted to give the photograph a flavour of Manchester with the iconic building in the background.”

Simon Annand's Behind closed doors exhibition
The Hard Problem review
Carmen Disruption - Carmen with a twist

Bryony Lavery, best known for her award-winning 1998 play Frozen, is photographed by the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. “She had just been adapting Treasure Island for the National Theatre and had been on an Antarctic trip, so she suggested I photograph her there.”

Tanika Gupta, whose plays include Meet The Mukherjees (2008) is photographed in her garden shed in Kentish Town. A plaque by the window says “To YOU it may only be a SHED/ But to me it’s a SANCTUARY”. “She was the first person I photographed, the other photograph which I adore is the one of her in the flowers outside in her garden. It is wild and abstract.”

Tanika Gupta, whose plays include Meet The Mukherjees, in her garden shed in Kentish Town (Simon Annand)

The Bruntwood Prize is Britain’s biggest playwriting competition; its winners have gone on to have work produced at the Royal Court, Almeida, on Broadway and in the West End.

Annand also photographed Anna Jordan who won the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Yen. She is captured at the Royal Exchange theatre in Manchester, where the play just had a run, while Duncan Macmillan who won the prize in 2005 for Monster is photographed in a cafe near his home in east London.

Annand usually photographs actors. His book, The Half, shows actors getting ready in their dressing rooms in the 30 minutes before curtain up. He says that writers are more cautious than performers in front of the camera. “It’s the relationship they have with themselves that makes them photogenic, not the session or the photographer. So by me not controlling it and being open to what is already happening in their minds I allow the process to happen,” says Annand.

“All I ask of my subjects is to go beyond a photograph of them being photographed.”

Bruntwood Prize Exhibition 2015, ‘Portraits of Playwrights’ by Simon Annand, The Great Hall, Royal Exchange, Manchester, from 25 April (royalexchange.co.uk)

The 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting is open for entries until 5 June www.writeaplay.co.uk