Phil Young

Phil was born in Liverpool. He studied drama and education at London University and completed his MA in Theatre Studies at Leeds University.

He was the inaugural winner of the Buzz Goodbody Royal Shakespeare Award at the National Student Drama Festival, and two years later was assistant director to Mike Leigh on an experimental improvised project at the RSC. He was associate director of Liverpool Everyman and Leeds Playhouse.

He won the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award in 1983 for Crystal Clear (Wyndham’s Theatre), which he then directed for the BBC. Subsequent original work includes Kissing God (Hampstead Theatre), Torpedoes in the Jacuzzi (Leeds Playhouse), Hot Romantic Love (Goldsmith’s College, University of London), and whilst resident playwright at Essex University in 1995 he wrote Total Orgasm performed at the University Theatre and Pentameters, London.

Phil has worked at most of London’s subsidised theatres including The Royal Court, Lyric Hammersmith, Croydon Warehouse and the Orange Tree Richmond.His original works have been staged throughout Germany and he has directed several German premieres in Munich and Heilbron including Lost in Yonkers, Blood Brothers, Assassins and the musical Gefährliche Liebschaften at the Komödie am Bayrischen Hof where he recently directed Noel Coward’s Gefallene Engel.

Phil has directed eight productions at The English Theatre, Frankfurt: Brighton Beach Memoir’s, Noises Off, Dial M For Murder, Corpse!, Private Lives, Death of a Salesman, Rumors and Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me.