TYRFINGUR TYRFINGSSON

Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson is an Icelandic playwright whose work has been staged in Iceland and internationally. His plays have been produced at the National Theatre of Iceland, Reykjavík City Theatre, KOM Teatteri in Helsinki, Teatr im. Stefana Żeromskiego in Poland, and Théâtre de Quat’Sous in Montreal, and presented at international festivals including Festival d’Avignon and La Mousson d’été.

​

Tyrfingur was born in 1987 and raised in Kópavogur, Iceland. He graduated from the performance making programme at the Iceland University of the Arts in 2011 and studied at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno and at Goldsmiths, University of London.

​

Bláskjár (Blue Eyes) premiered at Reykjavík City Theatre in 2014. Its French translation, Bleus, was presented at Festival d’Avignon in 2018 and at La Mousson d’été in 2019. Kartöfluæturnar (The Potato Eaters) premiered at Reykjavík City Theatre in 2017 and was later presented in staged readings in France, Italy, and Poland, including at Théâtre 13 in Paris, Short Theatre Panorama Roma, and Teatr Dramatyczny in Warsaw.

 

Helgi Þór rofnar (Helgi Comes Apart) premiered at Reykjavík City Theatre in January 2020, received critical acclaim, and was awarded Play of the Year at the Icelandic Performing Arts Awards. The play was selected for the Bureau des Lecteurs at the Comédie-Française in Paris in 2021 and has since been staged in Poland, France, and Canada.

 

Sjö ævintýri um skömm (Seven Fairytales of Shame) ran for a year on the main stage of the National Theatre of Iceland, received twelve Gríman nominations, and won six awards, including Play of the Year. The play later premiered at KOM Teatteri in Helsinki, where it played to sold-out audiences.

 

Lúna (The Beauty Show) premiered at Reykjavík City Theatre in January 2024 and received four Gríman nominations, including for Play of the Year. An international committee under Theater Info in Helsinki selected the play as one of the fifteen most interesting contemporary plays in spring 2024, and it was later featured in the Routledge publication Playwrighting with Purpose. Lúna has also been presented in a staged reading at La MaMa in New York and will premiere in Finland in 2026.

 

Tyrfingur is currently working on Rými fyrir ást (Space for Love), which will premiere at the National Theatre of Iceland in spring 2027. Further productions of his work are scheduled in Iceland, Finland, and other European countries.

 

His plays have been translated into German, French, Polish, English, Finnish, Italian, Dutch, Estonian, Hebrew, Canadian French, and Norwegian, and published in several countries.

 

Alongside his theatre work, Tyrfingur has written for film and television. He is the screenwriter of the feature film Villibráð (Wild Game), directed by Elsa María Jakobsdóttir, which premiered in 2023 and received nine Edda nominations, including for Screenplay of the Year. He is also a co-creator and writer of the television series Heima er best, produced by Lumière in Belgium and Freyja Works in Iceland; the scripts were nominated for the Nordisk Film and TV Fond Prize at the Gothenburg Film Festival.

 

Tyrfingur Tyrfingsson is a three-time recipient of the Icelandic Performing Arts Awards.

 

He lives in Amsterdam.

​

​