Bernard Pomerance was born in Brooklyn in 1940. He received an A.B. from the University of Chicago in 1962, and in the early 1970’s, he left the United States for London. His early ambition was to be a novelist, but he found that his greatest talent lay in playwriting. He became involved in the fringe theater groups that flourished in London in the 1970’s, and together with director Roland Rees, he founded the Foco Novo Theatre Group, which produced all of his early plays, including High in Vietnam Hot Damn and Someone Else Is Still Someone. In 1977 he wrote The Elephant Man, which was a critical and commercial success. It had an extended run at London’s Hampstead Theater before arriving at the Theatre at St. Peter’s Church in New York in January, 1979, and then on Broadway at the Booth Theater in April, 1979.

Pomerance, an elusive figure who rarely gives interviews, quickly returned to England after The Elephant Man opened in New York City. He has remained productive, writing Quantrill in Lawrence and Melons. Both plays produced mixed reviews, and neither approached anywhere near the success of The Elephant Man.