Prolific Playwright Alan Ayckbourn Suffers a Stroke

Alan Ayckbourn, one of Britain's most prolific and beloved playwrights, is recovering in a hospital in his hometown of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, after suffering a stroke.

"I hope to be back on my feet, or at least my left leg, as soon as possible," the 66-year-old playwright said in a statement. "I know it's going to take some time. In the meantime, I am in excellent hands."

Since 1970 Ayckbourn has served as the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where all of his new plays--usually premiered at the rate of one a year--are also tried out. His career includes writing over 60 original plays and directing many of them. He was most recently represented on Broadway by Manhattan Theatre Club's New York premiere of his 1972 play Absurd Person Singular, which played at the Biltmore Theatre in the fall, and off-Broadway by Private Fears in Public Places, which was seen with its original British cast at 59E59 Theaters in June 2005.

Ayckbourn's other plays include Comic Potential, Communicating Doors, Relatively Speaking, How the Other Half Loves, House and Garden, The Norman Conquests, Bedroom Farce, Woman in Mind and A Small Family Business. He also notably collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on the musical By Jeeves. Ayckbourn was knighted for his services to the theater in 1997. As he does each year, Ayckbourn is scheduled to lead his course "Ayckbourn and The Round" this summer at Stephen Joseph Theatre.