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 team:
A.C. Smith – Director and Co-Founder
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 – Head of Writer Development and Co-Founder
Kimberley is a playwright and budding screenwriter. She has had work produced at the Birmingham Rep and has developed work with the Manchester Royal Exchange, Wolverhampton University and All the Rage Theatre. She has also written and produced comedy sketch shows at the Hen & Chickens and is currently working on a television project. When she’s not writing, she works as a freelance script consultant and has also tutored playwriting students at RADA. Kimberley heads up our writer development and is keen to create exciting opportunities and resources for emerging writers. Along with the rest of the core team, she also manages the organisation and writes original content for the site.
Sam Sedgman – Digital Development Consultant
Sam is a freelance writer and digital project manager. He has managed digital projects for clients including the National Theatre, the Free Word Centre, Pegasus Theatre and Fevered Sleep. His work has been produced at Theatre503, the Warwick Arts Centre and Studio 52 in New York. He has read scripts in the literary departments of the Bush, the Finborough, the Old Red Lion, and Theatre503. He has also tutored playwriting students at RADA. Sam makes sure all our digital assets keep ticking, manages and takes a shared role in managing the organisation. He also writes plays now and again.
George Bailey – Literary Projects Manager
George is a poet, playwright, performer and digital producer. He is an alumnus of Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab and HighTide’s Writers Group and is a member of Papatango’s Havant Writers Scheme. He currently works at Chichester Festival Theatre in digital projects and has managed several creative writing projects with young people from a variety of backgrounds in regional theatres. He has had two full length plays produced in the last year along with shorter work showcased as part of new writing nights and is also a co-director and founder of ChewBoy Productions. George works to maintain the website and social feeds, whilst also planning, organising and delivering new projects for LPW members.
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.
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.
Samia Djilli – Events Co-ordinator
Samia is an emerging writer who has just graduated from University with a First-Class Honours in Creative Writing. She has had short stories and poetry published in various student anthologies, and last year had her first play produced at the Lion and Unicorn theatre. Samia has an interest in creating new content, and has worked on finding new and exciting opportunities for our website. She currently works with us on co-ordinating our events.