Helen has written plays for casts of one and plays for casts of sixty. She doesn’t often feel like it but she must be a bit of a brainbox because she has an MA with Distinction in Playwriting and a PhD.
Helen has written a first novel, Monkey Boots, and is currently researching a second, funded by Arts Council England.
Her theatre work includes Catchment Christians, about faith schools, which was produced in 2011 by Friction Theatre. Helen’s Princess Ping Pong won the International Children’s Playwriting Competition ‘Judges Award’ 2011, and The Violent Romantic Hero in Women’s Fiction won the Literary Consultancy Playwriting Competition in 2007 and was later selected by The National Theatre for their student director’s programme. She has also been placed in the National Poetry Competition.
Other credits include: Kept Woman R4; I Hate My Sister, winner of The National Student Playwriting Competition; Big Idea – The Red Room/Battersea Arts Centre, Trainer – selected for The London New Play Festival and produced as a short film by Mucky Duck Media after winning a Script competition. Blackberries was produced at the Orange Tree in Richmond and revived by Mouthpiece Theatre. Designs On His Body was produced at the Stephen Joseph Theatre and revived for Bitesize Theatre.
Touched, a play for sixty teenagers, commissioned by Youth Arts Leicestershire, was performed in England, France and Germany and revived by The Stephen Joseph Youth Theatre. The Angel Of New Street (collaboratively written) was broadcast on R4. Helen was Chalkfoot TC’s Associate Writer, and Spooky Little Girl was produced by Chalkfoot.
Helen’s large-cast play Faith was commissioned/produced by Birmingham University. Her second play for the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Tissue Paper for the Soul, completed a three-month run and she has also written two children’s theatre serials produced by the SJT – Kite and What’s in the Box.
BOLDtext Playwrights 