Twilight star Robert Pattinson was seen with a mysterious blonde partying in New York just before he split with longtime girlfriend Kristen Stewart and moved out of their house. Her name is Polly Stenham, a British playwright. In an Instagram photo, Polly appears with her arm around Rob during a night out with friends.
Could Polly be the reason why Pattinson and Stewart broke up? Fans are speculating that Polly Stenham is the mystery blonde Rob was spotted sharing an intimate dinner with on May 3 at Gemma in the Bowery Hotel. The duo “seemed like old-time friends,” according to a source.
But who is Polly Stenham? She is an award-winning English playwright known for her play “That Face”, which she wrote when she was 19 years old.
Polly Stenham was born in 1986. She is the daughter of businessman Anthony ‘Cob’ Stenham, she and her younger sister, Daisy, lived with him in Highgate, London, because she had little contact with her mother after her parents’ divorce.
26-year-old Polly attributes her love of theater to her father, who was chair of various arts organizations such as the Royal College of Art and Institute of Contemporary Arts. He took Polly to different shows from a young age including many at the Royal Court Theatre which would later stage her first play.
She was educated at Wycombe Abbey and later Rugby boarding schools. Polly spent a year traveling and working for the Ambassador Theatre Group and the Arcola Theatre. During this time, she enrolled in the Royal Court Young Writers Program and wrote her first play. She studied at University College London but dropped out to work on her debut play after hearing it was to be staged and following the death of her father in 2006.
Polly Stenham’s debut play, That Face, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London, on April 2007. It was directed by Jeremy Herrin and starred Lindsay Duncan. Stenham won the Evening Standard’s 2007 Charles Wintour Award, the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the 2007 Theatrical Management Association Award for Best New Play.
“I’m basically just writing about in front of middle-class people who afterwards can have a nice glass of wine. It’s incredibly indulgent.” She says she also loves theatre. “I love the tickets, the rustling, the fact it’s live. I’d be crap at any other job. To be honest, it’s a very exciting time to be alive. To be a writer.”
Polly represented the Royal Court at the 2007 Latitude Festival before That Face was played in the Duke of York’s Theatre. Her second play, Tusk Tusk, premiered at the Royal Court in March 2009, also directed by Jeremy Herrin.
She is currently adapting her first two plays for the screen. Also Polly is working on a screenplay called Dope Girls, to be directed by Adam Smith.
In 2011 Stenham, along with friend Victoria Williams, opened the art gallery “Cob Studios and Gallery” in Camden, London. In 2013 her third play No Quarter was staged at the Royal Court, directed by Jeremy Herrin and starring Tom Sturridge.
“I refuse to talk about my personal life because I think this cult of celebrity and obsession with the person behind the thing can really obscure the work,” she says. “Also, as a woman, you have to be that bit more angry or convincing or damaged. I get a lot of “oh, did that happen to you?” – and that f***s me off.”
Credits Include:
NO QUARTER (2013) Royal Court Theatre, directed by Jeremy Herrin.
TUSK TUSK (2009) Royal Court Theatre, directed by Jeremy Herrin.
THAT FACE (2007-2009) Royal Court Theatre, Duke of York’s Theatre, and Manhattan Theatre Club, directed by Jeremy Herrin.
