Laura Wade's first play, Limbo, was produced at the Sheffield Crucible Studio Theatre in 1996. 16 Winters was produced at the Bristol Old Vic Basement Theatre in 2000. After university she worked for the children's theatre company Playbox Theatre in Warwick. Wade's adaptation of W. H. Davies' Young Emma opened at the Finborough Theatre, London (where she was later Writer-in-Residence) in December 2003. Both Young Emma and 16 Winters were directed by Tamara Harvey, a contemporary from Bristol. In 2004, Wade was a writer on attachment at Soho Theatre and her play Colder Than Here was produced there in February 2005.[2] Her next play Breathing Corpses played at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in March 2005.[3] In March 2006, she returned to the Soho Theatre with Other Hands.[4] 2010 marked her reappearance at the Sheffield Crucible with her reworking of Alice in Wonderland, entitled Alice.[5]
Wade's first radio play, Otherkin, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 30 August 2007,[6] a 45-minute play billed as episode 2 of the Looking for Angels series. Her second, Hum, about the Bristol Hum, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 20 May 2009. Between these two she also wrote Coughs and Sneezes for the Radio 4 series Fact to Fiction. In April 2010, her play Posh began a sell-out run at the Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, London. An article about Wade in the London Evening Standard at the time drew parallels between the Riot Club, the subject of Posh, and the Bullingdon Club, an exclusive Oxford University dining society.[7] On 11 May 2012, an updated version of Posh opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London, Wade's first play to appear in the West End. A film adaptation of the play, The Riot Club,[8] directed by Lone Scherfig, was released in 2014.[9] In February 2015, the regional premiere of Posh was co-produced by Nottingham Playhouse and Salisbury Playhouse.[10]
On 25 August 2022, it was announced that Wade would be one of the writers and executive producers of the new Disney+ series Rivals, based on the novel by Jilly Cooper.[20]
Personal life
From 2007 to 2011, Wade lived with actor Samuel West,[21] son of actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales.[22][23] After a two-year split, Wade and West reunited, and now have two daughters, born in 2014 and 2017.[24]
