Pam Gems


Pam Gems was an English playwright. The author of numerous original plays, as well as of adaptations of works by European playwrights of the past, Gems is best known for the 1978 musical play Piaf.

Personal life

Iris Pamela Price was born in Bransgore, Hampshire, and had her first play – a tale of goblins and elves – staged when she was eight by her fellow pupils at primary school.
She studied psychology at Manchester University from which she graduated in 1949. She was in her forties when she started to write professionally. She is best known for her 1978 musical play Piaf about French singer Édith Piaf.
She was nominated for two Tony Awards: for Stanley in 1997, and for Marlene, starring Siân Phillips as Marlene Dietrich, in 1999. Gems adapted works by dramatists ranging from Henrik Ibsen, Federico García Lorca and Anton Chekhov to Marguerite Duras.

Family

She married wax model manufacturer and former architect Keith Gems; the couple had four children.

List of works

The Early Plays,
The Middle Plays,
The Late Plays