Ella Hickson – författare

Nominated for Community Award at The Stage Awards 2025Five powerful new plays by some of the most exciting artists working in the UK today – created with and for young people. Developed as part of Wonder Fools’ international project Positive Stories for Negative Times, which has engaged over 11,000 young people across 24 countries including the UK, South Africa, India, USA, Canada, Italy and Australia. Co-commissioned by Wonder Fools and the Traverse Theatre, these bold, imaginative plays span a wide range of styles, themes and forms – designed for ages 6–25. They invite young people to explore big ideas, ask urgent questions and take creative risks. The plays in this volume are:We Ain't Movin' by Travis AlabanzaAges 12-18Roman Cardboard Swift by Ella HicksonAges 12-25Hold Me Closer Bunny Baxter by James LeyAges 14-25Careful What You Wish For by Hannah LowAges 6-12The Book of Spin by Mammalian Diving ReflexAges 12-25Positive Stories For Negative Times began in response to the loss of creative spaces during the pandemic – offering young people the chance to connect, express themselves and make new work. Now an international programme, it includes hundreds of participating groups around the world, a Youth Board who dramaturg every commissioned play, a CPD programme for leaders, and four youth theatre festivals across Scotland taking place in summer 2025.Supported by Creative Scotland, the Gannochy Trust, Hugh Fraser Foundation, William Syson Foundation, Trades House of Glasgow Commonweal Fund and Gordon Fraser Foundation.

Eight compelling monologues offering a state-of-the-nation group portrait for the stage.From Millie, the jolly-hockey-sticks prostitute who mourns the loss of the good old British class system, to Miles, a 7/7 survivor, and Danny, an ex-squaddie who makes friends in morgues, Eight looks at what has happened to a generation that has grown up in a world where everything has become acceptable.Ella Hickson's play Eight was first staged at Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in August 2008. It was awarded a Fringe First Award and the Carol Tambor 'Best of Edinburgh' Award.The production transferred to Performance Space 122, New York, as part of the COIL Festival, in January 2009, and then to Trafalgar Studios, London, in July 2009.In its original performances, each audience voted for four of the eight monologues that they wished to see, resulting in a different line-up at every performance. A ninth unperformed monologue is included in this edition.The monologues are ideal for performance by student and amateur groups; any number and any combination can be performed. They also provide excellent opportunities for actors looking for audition material.

Two plays by award-winning playwright Ella Hickson.Precious Little Talent is about a father desperate not to forget his daughter and two young people determined not to be forgotten by the world.It was first performed at the Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, as part of the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and later, in a revised, full-length production, at the Trafalgar Studios, London, in April 2011.Hot Mess is a dark and lyrical tale about friendship, loss and loneliness. Twins Polo and Twitch were born with only one heart between them: where Polo is not looking to be loved, Twitch can do nothing but.Hot Mess was first performed at the Hawke & Hunter Below Stairs Nightclub, Edinburgh, in August 2010, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Four boys face the tricky transition to adulthood in Ella Hickson's riot of a play.The Class of 2011 are about to graduate and Benny, Mack, Timp and Cam are due out of their flat. Stepping into a world that doesn’t want them, these boys start to wonder whether there’s any point in getting any older. How will they find the fight to make it as adults?Before all that they’re going to have one hell of a party. It’s hot and there’ll be girls. Predict a riot.Ella Hickson's play Boys was first performed at the HighTide Festival, Halesworth, Suffolk, in May 2012, before transferring to the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton, and Soho Theatre, London.

A painfully comic excavation of a family history that asks if there is an authorised version of the past - or just the one we can live with.Kate Bane returns home to her parents for a winter weekend to introduce her new boyfriend. As the snow falls, Kate finds herself searching with increasing desperation for the truth about her family's past. Are her memories fact, or are they continually shifting acts of imagination?Unable to pin down the truth, can she write a version of the family mythology that will ensure her own happiness?Ella Hickson's play The Authorised Kate Bane first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in October 2012 in a production by Grid Iron Theatre Company. It then transferred to the Tron Theatre, Glasgow.

Ella Hickson's version of J.M. Barrie's much-loved story puts the character of Wendy firmly centre stage, in an adaptation that is refreshingly modern but never loses the charm of the original.Winter 1908. Snow is falling across London. Wendy Darling and her brothers sleep peacefully in their bedroom, as their parents bicker downstairs. In a sudden flurry of snow their window blows open, and into their lives tumbles a mischievous boy called Peter, followed by a fractious fairy called Tink.With the aid of a little fairy dust, Wendy agrees to fly with Peter to Neverland, seeing not only the promise of an awfully big adventure, but also the chance to rediscover the key to her parents' lost happiness. Once there, she will give the Lost Boys a run for their money, defeat Captain Hook and his pirate crew, and ultimately, learn what it means to grow up.Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Ella Hickson's Wendy & Peter Pan premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, in December 2013, and was revived by the RSC in 2015. It was staged at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, in an international co-production between Bunkamura in Tokyo and Leeds Playhouse in the UK.The play will suit any theatre company or youth group looking to stage a classic tale, full of magic, adventure and strong female roles.

The Bronze Age. The Iron Age. The Age of Oil.The Stone Age didn't end for want of stones.Oil follows the lives of one woman and her daughter in an epic, hurtling collision of empire, history and family.Ella Hickson's explosive play drills deep into the world's relationship with this finite resource. It is 'the single most gloriously audacious piece of playwriting of the last few years' (Evening Standard) and won the Catherine Johnson Award for Best Play in 2013.Oil premiered at the Almeida Theatre, London, in October 2016, in a production directed by Carrie Cracknell and starring Anne-Marie Duff.

When her first play, Eight, transferred from student theatre in Edinburgh to the West End and then New York, Ella Hickson was still in her early twenties. She has since built on that promise with a series of engaged and engaging dramas that pit romanticism and optimism against the realities of life as a young person in Britain.Eight (Edinburgh Fringe, 2008), that astonishing first success, is included here: a state-of-the-nation group portrait in monologues, ‘an interactive Talking Heads for 21st-century teens and twentysomethings’ (Independent).Also included is Hot Mess (Edinburgh Fringe, 2010), a dark and lyrical tale about twins born with just a single heart between them, and Precious Little Talent (Edinburgh Fringe, 2009; West End, 2011), about two young adults graduating into a world that’s sold them down the river.In Boys (HighTide Festival, Nuffield Theatre Southampton and Soho Theatre, 2012), the Class of 2011 faces a tricky transition to adulthood in a play that ‘powerfully captures the mood of a generation’ (Independent).The volume also contains an introduction by the author and two short plays: the previously unpublished PMQ, part of the Coalition season at Theatre503, London, in 2010; and Gift, first seen as part of Headlong’s immersive theatre production Decade in 2011.‘On the cusp of greatness’ Independent

‘I want the world to change shape.’ ‘I'm not sure theatre can do that.’‘Well then where am I meant to take that impulse because I'm very serious about the endeavour?’A young writer challenges the status quo but discovers that creative gain comes at a personal cost.The Writer premiered in 2018 at the Almeida Theatre, London, in a production directed by Blanche McIntyre.The Writer was a finalist for the 2019 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.'A playwright who grabs the zeitgeist' Independent

1968. East Berlin.Anna and Hans are married, in love and moving up in the world – but it is a world ruled by suspicion. Who can be trusted when everyone is listening? Can we ever escape our past?Written by playwright Ella Hickson, and co-created with sound designers Ben and Max Ringham, ANNA unfolds with all the tension of a spy thriller, and the inexorable revelations of an Ibsen play.ANNA premiered at the National Theatre, London, in May 2019, directed by Natalie Abrahami, with the audience wearing individual headsets to direct their attention amongst the overlapping scenes on stage. This uniquely formatted edition of the script features all of the play's dialogue, including the scenes seen but not heard in performance.