Marius von Mayenburg was born in 1972 in Munich. He studied Medieval Literature in Munich and Berlin, and, from 1994 until 1998, Playwriting at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1998 he began a collaboration with Thomas Ostermeier at Deutsches Theater in Berlin that continued, from 1999, at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin. He was awarded several prizes for his first play Fireface (1997). Since then he has written numerous plays, including The Ugly One, The Stone, Martyr and Plastic, which have been translated into over thirty languages and performed both in Germany and abroad. Since 2009 Mayenburg directs regularly at the Schaubühne in Berlin, as well as in other cities in Germany and across the world. His productions include plays by William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Stefano Massini, Maja Zade, Alan Ayckbourn, and his own work. Alongside his activities as playwright, dramaturg and director, Mayenburg has translated a number of plays, including Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, Measure for Measure and Richard III, all of which were staged by Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne. For his own productions, he has translated Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet. His work as a translator also includes contemporary plays by Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp and Richard Dresser. Mayenburg lives in Berlin.