Macdonald moved to London after university, and worked as an actress with the
7:84 Theatre Company and at the
Royal Court Theatre. Although her acting career included 7 years of television work, she eventually left it, due in large part to stage fright. While working as an actress, Macdonald wrote her first play,
When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout; it was first performed at the
Bush Theatre in 1984, and won her the
Evening Standard Award for most promising playwright. Some of the themes in
Scream and Shout were inspired by games that her son Caleb played with his friends. Of this, Macdonald has said that "it's the result of a bet, this writing life. I was desperate for a second child. Desperate never to act again. Most of all desperate to stop eating lentils, French bread and tomatoes. We were broke, Will and me. We had one child. My hormones were screaming at me to have another. So. Will bet me a child for the sale of a script". Actor
Alan Rickman, then a reader, found it in the unsolicited script pile and told the Bush they should put it on. I Macdonald's other work includes
The Brave, commissioned by the
Bush Theatre;
When We Were Women, first performed at the
Cottesloe Theatre;
All Things Nice, commissioned by the
English Stage Company and first performed at the
Royal Court Theatre in 1991;
The Winter Guest, which was made into a film, in 1997, directed by
Alan Rickman;
The Girl With Red Hair (2005), which had its first reading in August 2003; and
Windfall a film adaptation of Penny Vincenzi's best-selling novel
PiVotal Pictures. She has written two plays for the
National Theatre's Shell Connections programme;
After Juliet (in which Macdonald's daughter Keira starred as a young girl), and 2006's
Broken Hallelujah. Macdonald's resume also includes the novels
The Beast (1986) and
Night Night (1988), the
radio plays (for the
BBC) such as
Sea Urchins and
Gladly My Cross Eyed Bear (1999), the
libretto to
Hey Persephone!, performed at
Aldeburgh with music by
Deirdre Gribbin, and
Lu Lah, Lu Lah (2010) commissioned for a young all-female cast and performed at the
Cheltenham Ladies' College in
Cheltenham. == Personal life ==