Denise Deegan

Denise Deegan was born in 1950s London to a working-class family, writing her first play at the age of 7 for a school competition. She failed the Eleven-Plus exam, left school at the age of 15, and soon after trained in stage management at the East 15 Acting School. Over the next 13 years, she worked in stage management for many UK theatre companies whilst also writing plays. The first of her plays to be performed professionally was The Project, in 1970, in London fringe theatre. In 1983, her play Daisy Pulls It Off was directed by David Gilmore at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton. It then transferred to the Globe/Gielgud Theatre in London’s West End, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber, where it ran for nearly three years. This success enabled Denise to write full-time, and she has since had several plays performed by UK theatre companies.