Winsome Pinnock

The first Black British woman to have a play produced by the National Theatre, her award-winning plays include The Wind of Change (Half Moon Theatre), Leave Taking (Liverpool Playhouse Studio, National Theatre, Bush Theatre), Picture Palace (Women's Theatre Group), A Hero's Welcome (Women's Playhouse Trust at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), A Rock in Water (Royal Court Young People's Theatre at the Theatre Upstairs), Talking in Tongues (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), Mules (Clean Break Theatre Company) and One Under (Tricycle Theatre). Winsome has also written for radio and television.
The prizes awarded to her work include the Alfred Fagon Award (2018), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Special Commendation (1990), the George Devine Award (1991), the Pearson Award for Best New Play (1991), and the Unity Theatre Trust Award (1989).

Pinnock was an associate professor of drama at Kingston University from 2005 to 2019 and has also been a senior visiting fellow at Cambridge University. She has worked as a dramaturg with the National Theatre’s New Views program as well as with the Royal Court Theatre’s International Department.

The force of Winsome Pinnock’s epic and spacious dialogue deftly opens the ear and widens the heart; it gracefully compels the spirit to reckon with the necessity for absolute freedom.

Praise for Rockets and Blue Lights:

★★★★★ "Winsome Pinnock's inspirationally ambitious and all-encompassingly humane examination of the unresolved history of the transatlantic slave trade" - The Independent.