The Playwrights' Programme 2024
Meet the Playwrights who have joined our Playwrights' Programme 2024!
Drawing together a range of experiences, interests and disciplines, the cohort will work closely with our New Works Associate and guest writers to hone their craft and write a new full-length play.
Ollie Adebisi
As a child of Nigerian and Moroccan immigrants, Ollie has always felt representation is vital. They are a multi-disciplinary writer, playwright and DJ as well as shamelessly queer, neurodivergent, polyamorous and ex-Muslim. Last year, Ollie screened her Iris Prize-nominated film God at FACT as part of First Take and Queer Bodies’ Queer InSight programme as well as becoming a QueerCore Artist with Homotopia. In November, they performed their new play Sass as part of Homotopia Festival at the Everyman Playhouse, which they will bring to Unity Theatre in May 2024.
Liv Hodder
Liv is a writer, actor and theatre maker originally from Haywards Heath (now Liverpool-based). She is currently working on a comedic one-woman show called The Bricks and planning the next production with her company, Subtitle Theatre.
She recently graduated with a BA in Acting from Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts where she discovered her love of playwriting. Her first play Tinned Pineapple, was an absurd comedy about an artist’s life after being diagnosed with arthritis.
Caterina Incisa
Caterina is an award-winning writer, who has written for stage, screen and virtual reality. Her debut play, 0 Days Without Crying won the 2019 Stage to Screen Award at the Edinburgh TV Festival, and has since been optioned for television. She is passionate about representation of young carers in the arts and has an unhealthy obsession with Shania Twain.
Paul Jones
I’ve always written but didn’t take it seriously until my 40s when I returned to education. I won the 2021 Alfred Bradley Bursary Award for my radio play Patterdale, and was a member of the 2023 BBC Writersroom Voices programme.
Olga Macrinici
Olga is a migrant playwright and director, and recipient of the Jerwood Foundation 1:1 Fund. They work with young people and community groups, run playwriting workshops and perform as Eastern European drag king Valera BeLoved.
Sean McLoughlin
Sean is a Liverpool writer with an interest in incorporating poetry into stories. Originally training to be a journalist, he was accepted onto YEP Writers at the Everyman Theatre in 2021 to pursue playwriting. His debut play I Am Steven Gerrard completed its first run at The Hope Street Theatre in January 2024, with a primary aim to transform perspectives of masculinity in modern society.
Lucy Walters
Lucy has been a BBC New Creative, and wrote and directed Company, a BBC radio play. As the daughter of a drama teacher, she's been roped into the role of 'Child 1' for many years, and even played the baby in Caucasian Chalk Circle when less than a year old. Her love of theatre has only grown (even though she's now much more comfortable behind the scenes). She also writes short fiction as well as plays, and works as a Product Designer at Depop.
Beth Westbrook
Beth is a writer, performer, Pisces, and Whovian from The Wirral. Her first play Sunny Girl is being developed with HER Productions, whilst her second – Awareness – was part of Unity Theatre’s Open Call and Traverse Theatre’s Breakthrough Writers (in association with Lung Ha Theatre Company). Awareness was also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and the Bruntwood Prize.
Beth is passionate about improving the representation of Neurodivergence and Disability, and was featured in The Stage with the Neurodivergent Creatives Network (an online support network she co-founded).
