Playwright

Emily has an extensive and recognised playwriting track record, writing for adults and young people.

In 2018, Emily was the inaugural artist in residence at St Hilda’s Collegiate, for which she wrote In Our Shoes (Shortlisted for the Adam NZ New Play Award 2018). Her other works for young people include Ratted (2024), Le Sujet Parle (Robert Lord Outstanding Script Award, Dunedin Theatre Awards, 2019; Shortlisted for the Adam NZ New Play Award 2019; Highly Commended Playmarket’s Plays for the Young Competition, 2014), and Eloise in the Middle (Robert Lord Outstanding Script Award, Dunedin Theatre Awards, 2018; Winner Playmarket’s Plays for the Young, 2013).

She won the 2022 McNaughton South Island Play Award for her adaptation of Katherine Mansfield’s The Woman at the Store, and the 2021 Adam New Play Award for & Sons, a work Judges described as ‘beautifully written’, ‘thrilling in the best sense of the word’, and ‘shocking… lacerating and wicked…’

Emily was the recipient of the 2020 Bruce Mason Award, was the 2019 University of Otago Robert Burns Fellow in 2019, and received the Friends of the Hocken Collections Award 2023. For the latter, she researched and wrote Establishment, a series of monologues exploring and celebrating a range of  20th century Dunedin food venues and the people who dined and worked there.

For information about Emily’s other plays and to licence works go to playmarket.org.nz

‘Each script is its own defined dance between architectonic, temporal, and behavioural elements; a curious pursuit of how characters act at a particular place and time. ’