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Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland’s New Chair Announced
Last Wednesday, our chair Rona Munro, stepped down after a decade of supporting the organisation’s growth and governance.
Rona’s judicious and supportive chairing of the organisation took us through two successful rounds of Creative Scotland regular funding and the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The board and staff of Playwrights’ Studio owe her a great deal for the huge amount of work she’s contributed to the organisation and we all wish her the very best for the future. Rona’s personal reflections on arts funding in Scotland, written on the occasion of the end of her tenure as chair, can be found here.
Rona Munro is one of Scotland’s most experienced playwrights and has also written extensively for radio, film and television. She has had work produced by the Traverse Theatre; Edinburgh International Festival; National Theatre of Scotland; Royal Shakespeare Company, and Royal Exchange, Manchester. Recent plays include: James V: Katherine (Raw Material and Capital Theatres tour, 2024); Mary (Hampstead Theatre, 2022); James IV: Queen of the Fight (Raw Material/ Capital Theatres, 2022); Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (stage adaptation, UK tour, 2019).
We’re pleased to welcome Lewis Hetherington as our new chair, who has been a board member since 2021.
Lewis is a playwright whose work is rooted in collaboration, storytelling and play. He has won two Fringe First Awards and an Adelaide Fringe Award. He is co-founder of fieldwork performance and Constellation Points. He often works in community contexts and is passionate about using creativity to empower people to find connection and agency.
For fieldwork performance he was the director of QWERK, a festival showcasing queer playwriting from all over the world. He was creative lead for Dear Green Place; a project including creative writing, performance, foraging, dance and more which was a response to COP26 happening in Glasgow. With CJ Mahony, he co-led who will be remembered here, a multi-disciplinary project with Historic Scotland exploring queer stories within Scottish heritage.
Work with Constellations Points includes Cloud Man, The Secret Life of Suitcases (co-produced by Unicorn Theatre) and Rocket Post!
Other work includes: The Multiverse is Gay! (Lyceum Theatre Young Company), Red Riding Hood (Citizen’s Theatre), The Coming Back Out Ball (National Theatre of Scotland), BOYS (The PappyShow) and nine Christmas shows for Platform.
His work has travelled all over the world including performances in Australia, China, Canada, Germany, Japan, US and Singapore amongst many other places.
Full biographies of both playwrights alongside details of our other board members are available here. If you’re a playwright from or working in Scotland who’s interested in joining our board, details are also on this page.
Statement from Outgoing Chair of the Board, Rona Munro
I just want to take the opportunity to make a very personal statement as I stand down as chair of the board at Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland after ten years.
First I want to thank the staff, past and present who have supported me, guided me, and 'inspired me with their care and energy, nourishing the playwrights of Scotland. I want to thank my fellow board members, past and present, who have given so generously of their time and helped me guide the organisation through what have been extremely difficult years for all the arts in Scotland.
I leave a strong board and a wonderful new chair, playwright Lewis Hetherington. I also leave at the moment we have received the enormous relief of the news that the Playwrights’ Studio’s multi year funding has been renewed, if not to the level requested then at least to a level that allows the Studio to maintain their current support for playwrights and to move ahead on some of their larger ambitions.
One of my roles as chair over the last few years has been to help, in the very small ways I could, maintain other playwright’s morale in the face of the devastating impact of many crises over the whole theatre sector. Covid and then a succession of funding crisis left us, like all freelance artists in Scotland, campaigning for our very existence and trying to keep working in an atmosphere of pessimism and complete insecurity. The news that a practical and at least sustainable level of funding has finally been offered to many organisations after these years of anxiety is very welcome. However, and I do speak personally here, it is, I think, the bare minimum that could have kept our culture breathing.
Playwrights, all arts workers in Scotland, are not indulging themselves in elitist or frivolous activities. Art of all kinds and, I would argue, new writing in particular, is essential to a healthy culture. It is for everyone in Scotland.
Live theatre should, I believe, be restored to every hall and rural or urban gathering place in the nation. It should have its place in every community and reflect the stories of every community of Scotland. Live theatre, new plays, bring audiences together in real time, to share the stories that allow us to experience our common humanity. They provide catharsis, challenge, laughter, tears, and always, at their best, entertainment.
Playwrights, all creative workers are not a barely affordable add on to a nation’s expenditure, they are part of what a nation needs to thrive. I believe we have to remember that, even as we celebrate survival. We can do better than survive and I hope the uplift the Studio and other organisations have just received is part of a continued upward trajectory powered and emboldened by that truth.
It has been my privilege to be chair of the board of Playwright’s Studio, Scotland. I hope I will be appreciating their work, and the work of my fellow Scottish playwrights for many years to come.
Rona Munro, January 2025