Louise Stephens is a script reader and dramaturg. For over a decade, she has worked in literary departments and with theatre companies to support plays and writers in their development. She was the Literary Officer at the Traverse Theatre and, most recently, Deputy Literary Manager of the Royal Court Theatre. She has worked with theatre companies including the  Tron Theatre; Tiata Fahodzi; Òran Mór; Curve, Leicester; Live! Theatre; Rifco, and the Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland.

In her independent dramaturgy, she has most often worked with maker/performers, most recently Rachel Mars (Our Carnal Hearts: Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation & Playing with Form 2017); FellSwoop (Palmyra: Total Theatre Award for Innovation, Experimentation & Playing with Form 2017) and Jenna Watt (Flâneurs: Fringe First 2012; Faslane, Fringe First 2016). She has a PhD in Creativity Management from the University of St Andrews.

Speaking about this appointment, playwright Margaret Perry said:

‘Louise was the first person in the theatre industry to encourage my writing. Her dramaturgy on and encouragement of the potential in the very first draft of Porcelain back in 2014 buoyed and guided me through the many redrafts that followed, and she’s continued to give me brilliant, incisive support and feedback on my work ever since.’

 Dylan Coburn Gray said:

‘As long as I’ve known Louise, she has been dealing with a huge volume of work by a huge number of writers; the fact that she does so with both aplomb and consideration is remarkable given how hectic her life must be, and very welcome given how isolated writing can feel. The plates keep spinning, and they feel well looked after as they spin. For that reason – and lots of others – her appointment as Dramaturg is exciting and heartening to me.’