Charlene James

Charlene James is a British playwright and screenwriter. She won substantial acclaim for her play Cuttin' It, which addresses the issue of female genital mutilation in Britain, for which she won numerous awards. 2Playwriting James grew up in Birmingham, England. She became interested as a child, and took acting classes at Stage2 in Birmingham. She went on to study acting at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago before becoming interested in playwriting, and earned a place in the young writers' program at the Royal Court Theatre in London.Her first play, Maybe Father, was short-listed for the Alfred Fagon Award in 2009, and received a reading at the Young Vic theatre in London. She took a post as writer-in-residence at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 2013, where she focused on writing about teen mental health. She wrote Tweet Tweet for on a commission the Birmingham Youth Rep in 2014. The one-act play addresses issues of teen suicide and the pressures of social media.James came to greater public awareness with her 2014 play Cuttin' It. The play focuses on two teenage girls, both Somalis living in England, who have different perspectives on the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). James was inspired to write the play after watching the documentary The Cruel Cut by filmmaker Leyla Hussein, and after learning that FGM is practiced in Britai