Tanika Gupta

Over the past 15 years, Tanika Gupta MBE has written over 20 stage plays for major theatres across the UK as well as over 30 radio plays for the BBC and several original television dramas, as well as scripts for EastEnders, Grange Hill and The Bill. 

Tanika has also taught drama and run workshops in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, India, USA, the Netherlands, Germany and across the UK. She is a fellow of Rose Bruford College, runs courses for the Arvon Foundation and has led playwriting workshops in many UK universities and theatres including the National Theatre, Royal Court, Hampstead and the Young Vic. She has also been writer in residence at the National Theatre and Soho Theatre. 

After graduating from Oxford University, Tanika worked as a community worker as well as in an Asian Women's refuge for several years before she began writing drama in the early 1990s. Tanika became a full-time writer in 1996 and has established a successful career in theatre with regular forays into TV, radio and film.

Her work for the stage includes Lions and Tigers (Shakespeare’s Globe), an adaptation of Meera Syal’s Anita and Me (Birmingham Rep Theatre/Theatre Royal Stratford East), Skeleton (Soho Theatre), The Waiting Room (National Theatre), Sanctuary (National Theatre), an adaptation of Hobson's Choice (The Young Vic), Fragile Land (Hampstead), The Empress (RSC), Love N Stuff (Theatre Royal Stratford East), Sugar Mummies (Royal Court Theatre) and Wah! Wah! Girls (Sadler's Wells, Theatre Royal Stratford East & Kneehigh). 

Tanika was awarded an MBE for her services to drama in 2008.