Emma's play The Defamation of Cicely Lee is the recent winner of the 2019 'Shakespeare's New Contemporaries' competition, and was due to be staged at the American Shakespeare Center in May 2020 (postponed due to COVID-19). Emma is the first British playwright to win the competition, which invites playwrights to create 'companion plays' to Shakespeare's canon.
The Defamation of Cicely Lee is inspired by Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. In Corbridge in 1611, maidservant Cicely Lee is accused of committing adultery with her former master. What is the truth of it – and will Cicely’s voice be heard? The Defamation of Cicely Lee puts Cymbeline in conversation with the #MeToo era, and asks what we inherit from the past, and how telling our stories can create a more equal future.
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Emma's previous work includes Shakespeare's Sister , which is published and licensed by Samuel French (now Concord Theatricals), and received its international premiere at the American Shakespeare Center in Spring 2017 (dir. Jim Warren).
Shakespeare's Sister is a period drama: inspired by the tale told by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One's Own, it imagines the story of aspiring playwright Judith Shakespeare, who runs away to London to join the players, and tries to stage her play in difficult and dangerous circumstances. Shakespeare's Sister won the Theatre Royal Haymarket's Masterclass Pitch Your Play competition in 2015. |
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Emma has also adapted two Austen novels for the American Shakespeare Center: Emma and Sense and Sensibility (with Brian McMahon), which is published and licensed by Samuel French. Emma's work is regularly staged by schools, drama schools, and amateur groups; you can view her full theatrical CV here: 
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