Writers

James Ley

James Ley is an award winning writer living in Glasgow. He wrote and directed Ode to Joy (How Gordon got to go to the nasty pig party) winner of a Scotsman Fringe First in 2022 and nominated for a CATS Award 2023 (Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland) for Best New Play. James was co-writer with Damian Barr on Maggie & Me (National Theatre of Scotland). His other plays include Wilf (Traverse Theatre) and Love Song to Lavender Menace (Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Summerhall, SoHo Playhouse, New York). James is under commission to Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Wonder Fools. A BBC Writersroom Scottish Voices 2022/2023 and Edinburgh Film Festival Talent Lab alumni, James has written a feature adaptation of Love Song to Lavender Menace, in development with Compact Pictures. He is currently developing his gay action comedy short film Sleazy Tiger with Short Circuit through the Sharp Shorts scheme. He has just been awarded First Feature funding from Short Circuit to adapt Ode to Joy into his first feature as writer/director.

Ella Hickson

Ella Hickson is an award-winning playwright whose work has been performed throughout the UK and internationally. Ella’s theatre credits include ‘Adult Children’ (2021) a VR piece for the Donmar co-created with Sacha Wares in association with ETT, Scanlab Projects and Trial and Error Studios, ‘Swive’ (2019) at The Globe, ‘Anna’ (2019) at the National Theatre, ‘The Writer’ (2018) and ‘Oil’ (2016) at The Almeida Theatre, and ‘Wendy and Peter Pan’ (2015) at The Royal Shakespeare Company. She is a member of the Royal Society of Literature, a Thornton Wilder Fellow, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow, as well as a recipient of The Catherine Johnson Award. Ella is an Associate Artist of The Old Vic.

Travis Alabanza

Travis is a writer, performer and theatre maker from Bristol.

For stage, Travis wrote and performed in their debut show Burgerz which won the Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, sold out at Southbank Centre and Traverse Theatre and toured internationally. It was also voted one of The Guardian Readers Top Shows of The Year. The text is published by Oberon Books. Their play Overflow, which premiered at and streamed from The Bush, was met with critical acclaim including numerous four-star reviews and was shortlisted for the George Devine Award. Their latest theatre commission, Sound of the Underground, premiered as part of the Royal Court’s new season in 2023 to critical acclaim. Travis currently has a new show for stage in development with the Southbank Centre and Hackney Showrooms. For screen, Travis is developing projects with Lookout Point and See Saw.

Travis’ debut book None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary was published in 2022 by Canongate and in the US by Feminist Press in 2023. It won the Jhalak Literary Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and was listed in TIME Magazine’s 100 books of 2023.

Their work has also earned them a place on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list 2021, the Dazed100 list and in 2023 as an Evening Standard’s future stars of stage and screen.

Mammalian Diving Reflex

Based in Canada, Mammalian Diving Reflex views innovative artistic interventions as a way to trigger generosity and equity across the universe. Founded by Artistic Director, Darren O’Donnell in 1993, Mammalian is a research-art atelier dedicated to investigating the social sphere, always on the lookout for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences. We are a culture production workshop that creates site and social-specific performances, theatre-based productions, gallery participatory gallery installations, videos, art objects and theoretical texts. Mammalian’s body of work is interconnected, varied and vibrant, reflecting our unique and growing body of knowledge and expertise on the use and function of culture. We create work that recognizes the social responsibility of art, fostering a dialogue between audience members, between the audience and the material, and between the performers and the audience. In all its forms, the company’s work dismantles barriers between individuals of all ages and cultural, economic and social backgrounds; we collaborate with non-artists and offer both participatory opportunities for the audience as well as the traditional option of simply watching the proceedings as they unfold. It is our mission to bring people together in new and unusual ways, in Toronto, Canada, our home-base, and around the world, to create work that is engaging, challenging, and gets people talking, thinking and feeling.

Hannah Low (Young Writer Commission)

Hannah is a Chinese-Scottish writer, actor and youth theatre practitioner based in Edinburgh Scotland who graduated in 2019 with a First Class BA(Hons) degree in Musical Theatre. Most recently, Hannah was selected as a mentee for Playwright’s Studio Scotland’s 2024 programme, working with Douglas Maxwell to develop a new play. Hannah makes vibrant, narrative-led, interdisciplinary work for stage. Her projects are currently supported by Vanishing Point and Imaginate, and funded by Creative Scotland and the Edinburgh City Council Diversity and Inclusion fund.

Since graduating, Hannah has been part of Traverse Theatre’s Creating Spaces and Young Writers programmes and is a recipient of Vanishing Points ‘Everyone is Creative’ grant. She was also selected for Framework Theatre’s Home: A Project for New Writers. As part of these programmes she has learnt from artists Shilpa T-Hyland, Mariam Omari, Hannah Lavery and Raman Mundair. Hannah is beyond delighted to be working with Wonder Fools and writing her first ever professionally commissioned play.