Scotland has a long and rich history when it comes to developing and championing performing
arts, despite the most recent years where the theatre sector’s funding and support continues to
dwindle. The most recent example being the Scottish government’s decision to reinstate a
£6.6 million funding cut to Creative Scotland. With an industry arguably already on its knees, its
vital that we celebrate those who breaking out into this industry, and creating work that
challenge, and enthrall its audiences.
Laurie Motherwell
Laurie Motherwell, Glaswegian playwright, and alumni of the masters in playwriting course at
the University of Edinburgh, is an easy addition to this list. Fresh, funny, yet so full of heart,
Motherwell’s most recent play, ‘Sean and Daro Flake It ‘Til You Make It’, delighted Traverse
Theatre audiences this past April, and returned as part of the TravFest program, the Traverse’s
fringe offering. He was also the Tron Theatre’s Resident Writer for 2023 to develop his new play
‘The Grand Sun Shines Eternal’ and is currently under commission with the National Theatre of
Scotland. Motherwell will, undoubtedly, become one of Scotland’s shining writers as he
continues to tell stories with honesty, guts and joy.
Isla Cowen
Isla Cowen’s one woman play ‘She Wolf’ proved to be an absolute force to be reckoned with
during the 2022 Fringe Festival. The Scotsman called it “a memorable and hard-hitting piece of
feminist theatre”, while Reviews Hub called Cowen “a master of language”. ‘She Wolf’ won both
the Alpine Fellowship Theatre Prize and the Assembly ART Prize, and as someone who had the
good fortune to see it, it was hands down one of the best Fringe shows that year. Cowen most
recently had a new play, ‘To The Bone’, on at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre as part of their
summer program and, just this weekend, the Traverse hosted Cowen’s commission for
Edinburgh based company Strangetown, entitled ‘And… And… And…’. What is clear about Cowen
is that she has a clear and resounding theatrical voice that rings true in each of her works.
JD Stewart
A fellow graduate of the Masters in Playwriting course at the University of Edinburgh, Stewart
has hardly slowed down since graduating during the COVID years (2020). ‘The Birthday,
Engagement, Funeral Party’, a play written during Stewart’s time on the course, was shortlisted
for the Hope Mill Theatre Prize and longlisted for the Bruntswood Playwriting Prize in 2022. But
it was his two most recent ‘A Play, A Pie, A Pint’ shows (one of which was completely sold out)
that has made him one of the most recognizable emerging playwrights in Scotland. His plays are
always about queer stories in all their complexities, but at the core of each of them, is queer
joy. In a political climate becoming more and more unsafe for queer people to simply exist, it becomes even more clear why Stewart’s voice, and other LGBTQ+ writers, are both
commissioned and produced.
Image “New stage curtains at the 7th Street” by Mickey JT is licensed under CC BY 2.0.