Introducing the New Writing South Playwrights Cohort 2026.
Led by acclaimed new writing director and dramaturg (former Royal Court Associate Director) Lucy Morrison, the Playwrights Cohort is a group of playwrights living in the South East who have started their journey in writing and are ready to deepen their craft. They will attend a monthly series of in-person workshops between January and June, designed to give the structure, insight, and momentum to finish a full-length play. The process will culminate in a script-in-hand sharing with professional actors.
The Playwrights Cohort is supported through funding by the Garrick Trust, in partnership with Theatre Royal Brighton and Chichester Festival Theatre.
Lucy Morrison
Lucy Morrison is a freelance theatre director. She was Associate Director to the Royal Court from 2014 – 23. Prior to the Royal Court, she was Head of Artistic at Clean Break, Associate at the Almeida Theatre and Literary Manager for Paines Plough. Productions for the Royal Court include: Hope Has a Happy Meal by Tom Fowler, That Is Not Who I Am (Rapture) by Lucy Kirkwood, Scenes with girls by Miriam Battye, The Woods by Robert Alan Evans, Pests by Vivienne Franzmann & Product by Mark Ravenhill. Other theatre includes: Paradise Lost (co-directed with Ben Duke, Lost Dog Southern tour and BAC); Personal Values by Chloe Lawrence Taylor, Akedah by Michael John O’Neill & The Animal Kingdom by Ruby Thomas (Hampstead Theatre); Elephant by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti (Birmingham Rep); Billy the Girl by Katie Hims, This Wide Night by Chloe Moss (Clean Break/Soho); Little on the inside by Alice Birch (Clean Break/Almeida Festival); it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now by Lucy Kirkwood (Clean Break/Arcola).
This year’s Playwrights Cohort:
Nina Bhirangi-Bishop
A passionate youth worker and keen storyteller, Nina Bhirangi-Bishop loves inspiring young people through creative writing. She’s rediscovered her own craft through Writing Our Legacy’s 2024/25 Talent Development Programme and writing for their Covert Literacy Magazine. Her debut monologue Fallin’ Angels toured in 2024, and her biographical piece From Burnout to Balance was published in Flourish Magazine in the same year. Nina is delighted to be part of the Playwrights Cohort and excited to see where this takes her on her creative writing journey.
Rachel Mae Brady (she/her) is a Brighton based playwright. Born and bred in Dublin, her work explores themes of grief, identity, sexuality, religion, and violence, often through darkly humorous or mythic frameworks. Her writing has been performed at Theatre 503, Oxford Playhouse-Burton Taylor Studio, Theatre Royal Brighton, and the Old Fire Station, Oxford. She co-runs Savage Heart, a Brighton-based theatre company for whom she has produced three new plays, multiple new writing nights, Brighton 24 Hour Play Festival at Theatre Royal Brighton, and co-directed Dark Bites at The Regency Town House. She is also a public speaking coach. Insta: @rachelmaebrady
Eleanor Crosswell originally trained as an actor at LAMDA. Her first play Ember was longlisted for RSC’s 37 Plays and Theatre 503’s International Playwriting Award. She writes women-centric stories that address social issues in unusual ways, including magical realism. Her writing blends darkness with humour, and often plays with form and theatricality. She is fluent in British Sign Language
Elle Dillon-Reams is a queer, neurodivergent artist from Brighton, whose award-winning solo shows MEAT and HoneyBEE recently completed a UK tour. A BBC-commissioned poet and Verve-published author of Maladaptive, winner of several UK poetry slams, she has performed at festivals including Glastonbury, Latitude, & The Edinburgh International Literary Festival. More at Elle Dillon-Reams / IG @elledillonreams.
Cerys Duffy
Brighton based Cerys Duffy has had her writing performed across England, including The Park Theatre and The Southbank Centre. Her most recent play ‘Before The World Ends’ was longlisted for The Papatango Playwriting Prize. 2026 marks the debut of her new play ‘You’ve Gone Quiet’. Outside of writing, she directs for the stage and is Artistic Director for Open Handed Theatre.
Jack Fairey is a writer and theatre maker who grew up in Woking, Surrey. His solo show, The Sun, the Mountain, and Me ran at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, receiving four award nominations and being awarded ‘Best New Writing 2024’ by Chris Neville Smith’s Blog On Theatre.
Jo Gatford is an award-winning Brighton-based author and scriptwriter. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in over 70 anthologies and literary magazines, and her Shakespeare-inspired collection, The Woman’s Part, was published by Stanchion Books. She is an editor by day, and runs creative workshops at The Joy of Fixion by night. Read some of her work at www.jogatford.com
Elspeth McColl is an ADHD theatre maker and shaker from a working class background. Her work revolves around: dismantling class and mental health stereotypes, confronting injustice, all through that dark sense of humour her mumma gave her. Her work is informed by experience as opposed to theory. Or the more “Salt of the Earth” approach, a phrase she’s trying to reclaim from certain theatre “professionals”. She designs and delivers multiple community engaged art projects mostly with the military community, continues to make messy and chaotic theatre with my company Skin and Blister, and dabbles with spoken word every now and then.
Kishore Thiagarajan was born and raised in Singapore before moving to East Sussex in his teens. He read English Literature at Durham University and then trained at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He is an alumnus of Hampstead Theatre’s Introduction to Directing Course and Young Vic’s Young Mentoring Programme.
Gemma Webber moved to Brighton with her children in 2022, embarking on a self discovery journey of writing – and a diagnosis of AuDHD. She has written some short theatre pieces for showcases at the Komedia and her first full length play to be performed during Brighton Fringe 2026.
