About Us

Playwrights’ Blog was started in 2013 as a resource for emerging playwrights. We aim to bring together the latest opportunities, best resources, and good advice in one place.

In 2015, the team formed London Playwrights’ Workshop Ltd as a non-profit company to help expand this support for writers through workshops, events, and expanded online resources.

If you’ve got a writing opportunity you’d like to share with our readers, let us know!

MEET THE TEAM

The London Playwrights’ Blog is made up of a core team who work together to look after our website, posting new opportunities and original content, as well as doing additional work to broaden our reach across London’s playwriting community. We also have several other additional contributors beyond the core team, who write for us on a semi-regular basis.

CORE CONTRIBUTORS

A.C. Smith – Co-Founder and Head of Special Projects

A.C. Smith (Alli to friends!) is a scriptwriter and songwriter. She has won awards from the RSC and Soho Theatre, and had work performed at venues including Soho Theatre, RADA, Southwark Playhouse, Theatre503, HighTide Festival, Rose Playhouse Bankside, Pleasance Theatre, The Space, and the Tristan Bates Theatre and was a member of the Bush Theatre’s 2016 Emerging Writers Group. She has worked at RADA as a Playwriting Tutor and as Head of Academic Studies, and as a Development Executive at First Born Films, nurturing new feature film projects. As a lyricist and bookwriter for musical theatre, A.C. was shortlisted for the Kevin Spacey Artists of Choice Awards and has had her songs (written with Bella Barlow) performed at the Globe Theatre and on JemmThree Radio. She and Kimberley founded London Playwrights’ Blog and London Playwrights’ Workshop as resources to help writers bridge the gap between their artistic lives and practical goals. She is excited to be expanding this work into new initiatives to support London writers. Website: www.ac-smith.com

Kimberley Andrews – Co- Founder and Director

Kimberley is a playwright and dramaturg. She has had work produced at the Birmingham Rep and has developed work with Wolverhampton University, All the Rage Theatre, Luton Culture, and RADA, as well as participating in writers’ programmes at the Manchester Royal Exchange the BBC . She has also written and produced comedy sketch shows on the London Fringe. As a dramaturg, she has worked on short films for BBC ideas, tutored playwriting MA students at RADA, and works as a freelance script consultant. As well as managing the organisational side of London Playwrights’ Workshop, Kimberley focuses on Writer Development, creating content and resources for emerging writers, and leading workshops. Website: kimberleyandrews.info

George Bailey – Literary Projects Manager

George is a playwright, poet, dramaturg and producer. He is an alumnus of Soho Theatre, HighTide Theatre and Papatango’s respective writer development schemes as well as a graduate of Bristol Old Vic Theatre School’s MA Dramatic Writing course, taught by David Edgar. George is the Artistic Director of award-winning multi-arts company ChewBoy Productions who are an associate company of the Lion and Unicorn Theatre and Living Records Festival. Additionally, George facilitates creative writing projects and has worked in digital management for venues such as Chichester Festival Theatre.

Jane Ryan – Artistic Development Manager

Jane is a writer, director, producer and performer. A graduate from RADA and Birkbeck university studying an MA in Text and Performance. She has written and directed a play that was staged at the Kings Head Theatre. She has been a dramaturg for a play at The London Theatre and has also been a producer at the Pentameters theatre and is currently in the process of co-producing a theatre festival to be held in July.

Emily Garside – Script Consultant

Emily Garside is a playwright, dramaturg and academic and by day Arts Marketeer! A specialist in Musical theatre from an academic point of view, her PhD looked at the history of musical theatre and she has since worked on history and analysis of musicals for various publications. Emily is also a dramaturg who has worked on a variety of projects both plays and musical theatre. As Chair of the board for Taking Flight theatre Emily also has expertise in accessible/inclusive theatre an integrated BSL/Captioning. A graduate of RADA and University of Nottingham. She has produced work with Clock Tower Theatre, Freerayne Productions, Dirty Protest Theatre and The Other Room. And her play Don’t Send Flowers has toured to Cardiff, Wolverhampton and Manchester. Emily works regularly with The Arena Theatre Wolverhampton and is a writer for the 14/48 theatre festival there. She has taught Theatre at Cardiff Metropolitan University, the University of South Wales and Wolverhampton University.

Jack Pepper – Opportunities and Events Coordinator

Jack is an aspiring writer and director. He has written and directed a short play for the Strawberry One Act Festival in New York, self-produced site-specific theatre, and written for the performing arts venues the George Tavern in East London. He also volunteers at the Southwark Playhouse and The White Bear Theatre.

Emily Glaze - Literary Associate

Emily is a writer, actor and dramaturg. On a placement at Centre College in the United States she specialised in creative writing and directing, before going on to write and perform a short titled, Fembots, at Rose Bruford’s The Rose Theatre in January 2018. After graduating from Rose Bruford College she went on to study Drama Writing at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She was one of the winners of the Popelei Seed Commission 2020, a project on Women in Lockdown, which features an extract from her stage play, Mute. She has a writer membership with The New Works Playhouse and is currently developing work for digital production.

Photo by Charlotte Cox

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

Jennifer Richards – Editorial/ Contributor

Jennifer Richards is a freelance journalist, having written articles for Refinery29, The Brighton and Hove Independent, GoThinkBig, Spiked, The Debrief, and Wonderland magazine. She has also interned for publications including The Times, The Week and Girl Talk. As a creative writer, she was selected to contribute a short play to the Writers Avenue 6 Degrees show at The Courtyard Theatre. She has also previously been a finalist in the Merlin Theatre Short Play Competition.

Nika Obydzinski – Script Consultant

Nika is thrilled to be a member of the LPB consultancy team. She has been part of the literary team at Theatre503 for several years, presently as a senior reader and reader for the 503 Playwriting Award. She previously managed the King’s Head Theatre literary department, where she also project managed the Adrian Pagan Award for new writing, produced a series of rehearsed readings at the Hope Theatre, and twice served as a judge for the Stella Wilkie Award. Her own work has been performed at the Tristan Bates Theatre, The White Bear, Lost Theatre, and BAC. She earned her MA in Text and Performance from RADA and Birkbeck College, and her BA in Drama from UC Irvine.

Adam Taylor – Columnist, Pursued By A Bear

Adam Taylor is a playwright from Watford. He gained a place on Paines Plough’s Future Perfect 2009 and subsequently had plays performed at Soho Theatre, The Unicorn, North Wall Oxford, the Latitude Festival and Rose Bruford College. Adam has written and performed his own monologues at Watford Palace Theatre, Soho Theatre and the Hen and Chickens. He has written short plays for nabokov’s Present : Tense and Theatre 503. Adam has written two plays under commission from Strode’s College, Egham. He collaborated with Theatre Re to create The Gambler, which was shown at the Pleasance for the duration of the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe and toured to The Roundhouse, The Space, Jackson’s Lane, the RADA Festival and The Cockpit Theatre. Adam also writes and produces his own hip hop as a solo artist under the name CymbalEyes and as one half of the group Versiz with King Cao.

Jo Griffiths – Theatre Reviewer

Jo is a drama teacher and workshop facilitator, working with various groups from schools and Further Education Colleges. Having completed her MA in screenwriting, the writing bug took hold and she now a wanna be playwright. She reviews productions for the The London Pub Theatre Guide.