{{Short description|English playwright, poet, painter, feminist, and environmentalist (1925–2019)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Use British English|date=July 2024}} {{more citations needed|date=July 2024}} '''Irene Coates''' (née Gregory; 23 March 1925{{snd}}18 June 2019){{cn|date=July 2024}} was an English playwright, poet, painter, feminist and environmentalist.{{cn|date=July 2024}} She is the author of 14 plays and four books,{{cn|date=July 2024}} including ''Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf?: A Case for the Sanity of Virginia Woolf''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://australianplays.org/playwright/ASC-314|title=Irene Coates|website=AustralianPlays.org|accessdate=14 July 2019|archive-date=14 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714185318/https://australianplays.org/playwright/ASC-314|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Biography== Irene Coates grew up in a Bohemian family in London.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.brandl.com.au/irene-coates|title=Irene Coates|accessdate=14 July 2019}}</ref> In the 1940s she ran the Cambridge Drama Centre. She wrote 14 plays between 1961 and 1981, which were produced among others by the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed at the Edinburgh Festival. She migrated to Australia in 1982 and was Writer in Residence (drama) at Nepean in 1998. She was the sister-in-law and aunt respectively of the painters Ivon Hitchens and John Hitchens.{{cn|date=July 2024}}

==Works== ===Books=== * {{cite book |last1=Coates |first1=Irene |title=Who's Afraid of Leonard Woolf? A case for the sanity of Virginia Woolf |date=1998 |publisher=Brandl & Shlesinger |location=Rose Bay, New South Wales |isbn=1876040122 }}

===Plays=== * ''The Wideawakes'' (1965)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://arielmusic.co.uk/theatre/theatre-1960/?v=79cba1185463|title=Theatre 1960 &#124; Ariel Music|website=arielmusic.co.uk}}</ref> * ''The Space is Mine''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-479|title=This Space is Mine|website=AustralianPlays.org|accessdate=Jul 14, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150405232528/https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-479 |archive-date=5 April 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> * ''Self Service''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-481|title=SELF SERVICE|website=AustralianPlays.org|accessdate=Jul 14, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190714185317/https://australianplays.org/script/ASC-481 |archive-date=14 July 2019 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== Films === * ''Irene Coates on Seeing''

==References== {{reflist}}

== External links == *[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWCrONC-2g Irene Coates on Seeing]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Coates, Irene}} Category:1925 births Category:2019 deaths Category:20th-century English dramatists and playwrights Category:People from Chichester Category:English women dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century English women writers Category:English emigrants to Australia

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