Playwright John Arden Has Died

Playwright John Arden has died according to published reports. He was 81.

Arden’s plays include Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance, which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 1959, in a production that starred Dudley Moore. The work later played New York’s Lucille Lortel Theatre in 1966, earning Arden a Drama Desk Award.

Among his other plays are The Waters of Babylon, Live Like Pigs, This Happy Haven, The Workhouse Donkey: a Vulgar Melodrama, Armstrong’s Last Goodnight: an Exercise in Diplomacy, The Little Gray Home in the West, and Vandaleur’s Folly.

Arden also wrote the novels Silence Among the Weapons: some events at the time of the failure of a republic, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, along with Books of Bale, a fiction of history, and The Emperor’s Whore: seven tall tales for an indecorous toy theatre.

He is survived by his wife and four children.