TYRFINGUR TYRFINGSSON

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Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson's award winning plays have been featured at Festival d'Avignon, La Mousson d'été and during Island, terre de théâtre at Théâtre 13 in Paris, in Chicago, by Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw, in Rome and of course Iceland. Helgi Comes Apart was one of the selected plays by Bureau des Lecteurs de la Comédie-Française in 2021 and was chosen as The Play of the Year at Gríman, The Icelandic Performing Arts Awards in 2020. Seven Fairytales of Shame ran for a year at Þjóðleikhúsið, The National Theatre of Iceland. It received 12 nominations for Gríman, and won 6 of them, including Play of the Year.

Descendants, a TV series Tyrfingur co-wrote, was recently nominated for The Nordisk Film & TV fond Prize at the Gothenburg Film festival. Villibráð (Wild Game) just received nine Edda nominations including script of the year.

On Now:

The Żeromski Theatre in Poland recently produced Helgi Comes Apart, which is now running in Kielce Poland. Tyrfingur’s newest play, Lúna (English title: The Beauty Show), premiered on the 19th of January 2024 at The Reykjavík City Theatre and is running.

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            Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson was born in 1987 and grew up in the small town of Kópavogur, Iceland, where all his plays take place. He studied at the Iceland University of the Arts, Janáček Academy in Brno, Czech Republic and Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

Tyrfingur's first play Grande was his graduation piece from the Art Academy in 2011, it earned him recognition in Reykjavík and a nomination for Gríman. Two years later Blue Eyes premiered at the Reykjavík City Theatre where Tyrfingur was made a resident playwright. A French translation of Blue Eyes, titled Bleus, was given a staged reading at the Avignon Festival in July 2018. Bleus was also performed at La Mousson d'été in France in August 2019.

The Potato Eaters received five-star reviews in Iceland, with critic Jakob S. Jónsson naming Tyrfingur as Iceland's preeminent playwright. The Potato Eaters was featured at Théâtre 13 in Paris during the festival on contemporary playwriting called Island, terre de théâtre in April 2019. In October 2020 The Potato Eaters was performed at the Panorama Roma festival in Rome. And in November 2020 the Drama Theatre of Warsaw (Teatr Dramatyczny) streamed The Potato Eaters on their website. De Nieuwe Toneelbibliotheek in Amsterdam published a Dutch translation of The Potato Eaters made by Vincent van der Valk, De Aardappeleters, in April 2021.
I mangiatori di patate was published by Nowhere Books in the summer of 2022.

Helgi Comes Apart had its premiere at The Reykjavík City Theatre in January 2020 to rave reviews: “Chekov is fine and Bulgakov is fine, but they do not raise the audience’s blood pressure. Tyrfingur‘s work does.“ Helgi Comes Apart was featured at the 2020 Nordic Spirit Festival in Chicago. A French translation of the play, Quand Helgi s'est tu, was published by Maison d'Europe et d'Orient in Paris in November 2021. It was one of the selected plays by Bureau des Lecteurs de la Comédie-Française the same year. The Dutch literary magazine Terras published a scene from Helgi Comes Apart in their spring 2021 edition. The play was programmed at Festival Regards Croisés, Troisième Bureau in Grenoble in France in May 2023.

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Tyrfingur has received nine Gríman nominations and won the award three times, including Play of the Year for both Helgi Comes Apart and Seven Fairytales of Shame. ​In 2018 The Potato Eaters was nominated for the Cultural Awards. Seven Fairytales of Shame received 12 nominations and won 6 Gríma Awards at Gríman 2022. In February he received his first Edda nomination for the script for Villibráð. Descendants, a TV series Tyrfingur co-wrote was recently nominated for The Nordisk Film & TV fond Prize at the Gothenburg Film festival.

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Tyrfingur’s plays have been translated to German, Polish, French, English, Italian and Dutch. 

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Villibráð, Tyrfingur's first film script written with director Elsa María Jakobsdóttir and produced by ZikZak and Scanbox premiered in January 2023. It is the highest grossing Icelandic film in the history of film making in Iceland.

He is the co-creator and writer for the TV series Descendants, produced by Lumière in Belgium and Freyja Film Works, Iceland which premiered in November 2023.

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Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson lives in Amsterdam.