Yvonne Brewster

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Yvonne Brewster, OBE, is a director, actor, teacher and writer. She co-founded the acclaimed Black British theatre company Talawa in the UK and in 1965 she also jointly founded (with Trevor Rhone) The Barn in Kingston, Jmaica's first professional theatre company.

She was awarded an Order of the British Empire for Services to the Arts in 1993, and in 2001 she was granted an honorary Doctorate from the Open University. In 2005, the University of London's Central School of Speech and Drama conferred an honorary fellowship on Brewster in acknowledgment of her involvement in the development of British theatre.

In 2004 she published The Undertaker’s Daughter: The Colourful Life of a Theatre Director (Arcadia Books). She has also edited five collections of plays, including Barry Reckord's For the Reckord (Oberon Books, 2010)and Mixed Company: Three Early Jamaican Plays, published by Oberon Books in 2012.