Hannah Lavery is a poet, playwright, performer and director. The Drift, her autobiographical lyric play, toured Scotland as part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Season 2019.
In 2020, she was a recipient of a New Playwrights Award by Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland and selected by Owen Sheers’ as one of his Ten Writers Asking Questions That Will Shape Our Future for the International Literature Showcase, a project from the National Writing Centre and the British Council. She was also selected as one of the Scottish Voices for the BBC Writers’ Room.
In November 2020, her highly acclaimed play Lament for Sheku Bayoh was directed by Hannah in a co-production with the Royal Lyceum Theatre, National Theatre of Scotland and Edinburgh International Festival and will return to the Edinburgh International Festival in 2021.
Hannah is one of Imaginate’s Accelerator Artists and an Associate Artist with the National Theatre of Scotland as well as Writer in Residence at Lyceum Youth Theatre and her play for children commissioned by Imaginate will be shared as a work in progress at Edinburgh International Children’s Festival in May 2021.
She was also recently selected for the Adopt a Playwright Award by offwestend.com and is under commission by Pitlochry Festival Theatre to adapt Jekyll and Hyde for their upcoming Summer Season 2021.
Her poetry has been published widely and her poem, Scotland, you’re no mine, was selected by Roseanne Watt as one of the Best Scottish Poems 2019. Her pamphlet, Finding Seaglass was published by Stewed Rhubarb Press in 2019.
She has performed at many poetry nights and festivals including, Neu! Reekie!, Edinburgh Book Festival, Stanza Poetry Festival and Sonnet Youth and in 2021, she is undertaking a translation poetry project with Stanza and the Ukraine Poetry Festival.
Hannah is an experienced workshop facilitator and mentor and received the Creative Edinburgh Leadership Award in 2020, for her work with the Writers of Colour Writing Group and for curating and directing a film poetry series, Sorry, I Was On Mute, for Fringe of Colour.“
Twitter: @HanLavery
Image: Hannah Lavery 2019.
