Tamara von Werthern

Tamara von Werthern is a German-British playwright, screenwriter and novelist. Born in Germany, she now lives in London and writes in both English and German, translating her own work.

For theatre, her work has been performed at the Royal Court, Southwark Playhouse, the Pleasance, the Arcola and the Space Theatre, amongst others. She is published by Nick Hern Books. Her plays include The White Bike, staged in 2017 at The Space, directed by Lily McLeish (‘a personal story told with a gentle touch’ Spy in the Stalls), Sharks Are Terrorists, staged in 2018 at The Southwark Playhouse, directed by Anna Marsland (‘plenty of off-beat humour’ The Upcoming) and Jackpot (co-written with Jack Hughes), which was longlisted for BBC Writersroom Drama 2018.

Plays in development: Alice with director Gemma Kerr, movement director Jenni Jackson, and producer Bianca Beneduzzi. Baby Dolls with director Anna Girvan and co-producers Fiona Steed and Charlotte Keith (Very Rascals) and Puddles with director Anna Marsland and composer Sam Hooper. Puddles concluded an ACE-funded R&D period at Shoreditch Town Hall in 2022. The script is available on request.

For screen, her short film I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire (an Elias Production) won Best Screenplay Lift-Off Season Award 2019, a Lift-Off Special Mention Award, Best Short Film (Comedy) at Kosice International Film Festival and an Honorary Mention for Best Original Story at Independent Film Awards LA and has been screened in Cannes, London and Berlin.

Projects in development: Möbius (Striking Back Pictures) and Reasons to be Hopeful (Phoenix Productions), a TV drama series looking at positive news stories around climate change aimed at young teens.

Novels: Her debut English-language novel, Only the Lonely, was published in 2022. In it she places her eccentric real-life father in the middle of a spoof crime novel and creates a lovable hapless detective figure with a canine sidekick, Maschka. The book was originally written in German under the title Ich glaub, es Hackt!, with two more books in the series, Ach du liebe Zeit! and Adel auf dem Radel.

Other published work includes contributions to Letters To The Earth (Harper Collins) and 100 Voices 100 Years (Unbound)

Podcast: Tamara is founder, co-producer and co-host of theatre podcast Fizzy Sherbet (www.fizzysherbetplays.com), which won a Sarah Award in New York in 2020 and aims to connect women from around the world.