Biography of Brian McAvera

Brian McAvera is an Irish playwright across the media, having written over 25 stage plays, fifteen radio plays, and two films, one of which he produced and directed. Although he is from Northern Ireland, and spent many years writing and directing political plays, and also co-founding and directing for New Writers' Theatre in Belfast, he is probably best known in relation to the international success of the cycle of eight plays called Picasso's Women which seek to uncover the buried lives of the women in Picasso's life (translated into 9 languages so far) as well as its companion piece Yo! Picasso: Beside Picasso, which sees the story from the point of view of Picasso and his lifelong secretary Sabartes. The recent Kings of the Road views Northern Ireland from a tragic-comic point of view, looking at the lives of busmen over the generations. All of these have been published by Oberon Books, London. Brian is also the author of four books of art history and criticism, over 30 catalogues and about a million words of art criticism. He is a contributing editor of Sculpture (USA) and also State of Art (UK) as well as being a regular contributor to Irish Arts Review. He also curates exhibitions, the next one being a survey of socio-political art during The Troubles, scheduled for the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast (Jan 2006). Currently he is writing a play about the artist Francis Bacon, a series of three plays on Venetian artists (Titian, Tintoretto & Canaletto), and two musicals, one about the relationship between Henry Miller and Anais Nin; and the other 'suggested' by the life and times of Bob Dylan.