The theatre is located at Kingston Grammar School and is named after acclaimed playwright and novelist, Michael Frayn, who is an alumnus of the school (1946-1952).

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Michael Frayn's career started as a journalist for The Guardian and The Observer, where he began writing plays and novels. His award-winning plays include three Evening Standard Awards and two Olivier Awards for the comedies Alphabetical Order (1975); Donkeys' Years (1976); Make and Break (1980); and Noises Off (1982). He is also a three-time winner of the Evening Standard Award for Best Play for Benefactors (1984);  Copenhagen (1998), which also won a 2000 Tony Award; and Democracy (2003). In 2013 he was awarded an Olivier Special Award in recognition of his achievements in British theatre.

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Novels include The Tin Men (1965), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Russian Interpreter (1966), winner
of the  Hawthornden Prize; and Towards the End of the Morning (1967). Later novels include A Landing on the Sun (1991), which won the Sunday Express Book of the Year; Headlong (1999), shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction; and Spies (2002), winner of the Whitbread Novel Award. His most recent novel is Skios (2012).

 

Screenwriting credits include Clockwise (1986) starring  John Cleese, and First and Last (1989) which won an International Emmy Award. Frayn is also an accomplished translator of numerous Russian works by Chekhov and Tolstoy, and the author of many non-fiction works, including a book of memoir, My Father's Fortune, shortlisted for the 2010 Costa Biography Award and winner of the 2011 PEN Ackerley Prize.