Draft:Mark O'Thomas

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Mark O'Thomas is a British playwright, academic and drama-school leader. He is Principal and Chief Executive of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), and his work spans theatre adaptation, scholarship on contemporary British theatre's international reach, and public commentary on access to actor training.

As a dramatist, O'Thomas is known for his stage adaptation of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, based on Jorge Amado's 1966 novel. The production, staged in 2006 at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, as part of its Mix season, was presented by Dende Collective, an Anglo-Brazilian company committed to work with a strongly Brazilian character. It was the first European stage adaptation of Amado's novel. Directed by Andre Pink and designed by Rachana Jadhav, the production combined Brazilian music, dance and shadow puppetry, and was noted by critics for the vitality O'Thomas's script brought to the material, though some felt the writing occasionally over-explained. The piece reflects his long-standing engagement with Brazilian culture and with bringing Lusophone literature to English-language audiences.

O'Thomas's scholarly work includes Royal Court: International, co-authored with the theatre scholar Elaine Aston. The book examines the Royal Court Theatre's international programme and the role of London's leading new-writing venue in exchanging plays and playwrights across borders. It was reviewed in Platform: Journal of Theatre and Performing Arts, the postgraduate journal published by Royal Holloway, University of London, in its Autumn 2015 issue on performance, place and geography and the journal Modern Drama among others.

As head of LAMDA, O'Thomas has become a public voice on the economics of conservatoire training. In May 2026 he argued in The Stage that the long contact hours demanded by drama-school courses leave students unable to hold down paid work alongside their studies, and that this effectively restricts training to those who can afford it, with knock-on consequences for the diversity of the theatre workforce. His intervention framed the question of who can afford to train as a structural issue for the sector rather than simply a matter of individual student finance.