Emma Wood

Emma Wood

Emma Wood is an award winning, internationally produced playwright from Melbourne Australia. With a determination to write stories both entertaining and thought provoking, Emma’s plays have been widely acclaimed by audiences and critics in ten full length productions. Her ability to create passionate, substantial roles for men and women of all ages delights actors and audiences. Her full length plays are very...
Emma Wood is an award winning, internationally produced playwright from Melbourne Australia. With a determination to write stories both entertaining and thought provoking, Emma’s plays have been widely acclaimed by audiences and critics in ten full length productions. Her ability to create passionate, substantial roles for men and women of all ages delights actors and audiences. Her full length plays are very different but have common threads: engaging characters of a wide range of ages, sparkling dialogue, and a satisfying story to tell. She has been produced by professional and community theatre companies in the USA, UK, Australia and Asia.
Emma is the recipient of Best New Play in the City of Newcastle Drama Awards 2012 for Water Child, as well as a nomination in 2014 for Mr Bennet's Bride. A Hit and Miss Christmas, was a finalist B Street Theatre New Comedies and semi-finalist with Creede Repertory Headwaters New Play Festival and Dreamcatcher Rep, New Jersey 2021. Another full length play, The Third Act, was a semi-finalist in Act Your Age Showcase (Manchester UK) 2021.
She also won 'Audience Choice' award at Short and Sweet Manila 2017 for her short play 'Women of the World'.

Plays

  • Mr Bennet's Bride
    Mr Bennet’s Bride is a full length period comedy, based on Mr and Mrs Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, exploring how this ill-matched couple met and married twenty five years before the novel’s opening. In the late eighteenth century, marriage is more a business transaction than a love affair. Pressure mounts on the young Mr Bennet to find a suitable match, but his refusal to play by the rules...
    Mr Bennet’s Bride is a full length period comedy, based on Mr and Mrs Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, exploring how this ill-matched couple met and married twenty five years before the novel’s opening. In the late eighteenth century, marriage is more a business transaction than a love affair. Pressure mounts on the young Mr Bennet to find a suitable match, but his refusal to play by the rules sets in motion a series of events that are both comic and moving.
    At the premiere production at Newcastle Theatre Company, most of the seats were sold out before opening night. Many other companies in Australia and the UK have since gone on to record breaking sales and delighted audiences.
    And see what the critics think:
    'Austen knew what she was doing when she created her characters ... and Wood’s work is an honourable and true descendant of this great literary creation.' The Plus Ones, Melbourne Australia.
    ‘…there is no doubt that Jane Austen aficionados and thespians in general will embrace this sophisticated and clever script. Maybe they should start screen printing the T-shirts now.’ Michelle Gosper, Sydney Arts Guide
    'It is amazing to recognise the brilliance of Emma Wood in absorbing and then matching the brilliance of Jane Austen. I can imagine an e-talking book beginning with Mr Bennet’s Bride and naturally continuing with no apparent break with Pride and Prejudice. For another 200 years.' Canberra Critics Circle 2023
    ‘…a play that charms the heart… a cleverly layered comedy…’
    Michael Byrne, Newcastle Herald.

    www.emmawoodplays.au
  • Piece of Mind
    When Gwen and Allie open a daring business venture to shore up their meagre retirement savings, they unwittingly open a Pandora’s box with it, threatening their investment, their reputations and even their friendship.

    www.emmawoodplays.au
  • A Hit and Miss Christmas
    Finalist, New Comedies Festival, B Street Theatre CA, 2020
    Semi-Finalist, Headwaters Festival, Creede Repertory Theatre CO, 2021
    Semi-finalist, Dreamcatcher Repertory NJ, 2021 (now known as Vivid Stage)

    Full length festive comedy. The Hit and Miss Theatre Company is in need of a good Christmas show. Bums on seats, festive cheer, moral fable: A Christmas Carol! Tick. Except there’s...
    Finalist, New Comedies Festival, B Street Theatre CA, 2020
    Semi-Finalist, Headwaters Festival, Creede Repertory Theatre CO, 2021
    Semi-finalist, Dreamcatcher Repertory NJ, 2021 (now known as Vivid Stage)

    Full length festive comedy. The Hit and Miss Theatre Company is in need of a good Christmas show. Bums on seats, festive cheer, moral fable: A Christmas Carol! Tick. Except there’s a new artistic director in town with new ideas. And Dickens has been done every decade in living memory. The heart and soul of the company are up for grabs as the battle wages between tried and true vs daring and new.
  • The Third Act
    Full length comedic drama. Sue’s daughter is getting married. While Lara brims over with excitement, Sue grits her teeth and wonders how she will endure it. The wedding will force her to come to terms with her own, very different circumstances: the end of her long marriage, her estranged husband and his new partner and questions she has tried very hard to push away. Can she find the strength to face very a...
    Full length comedic drama. Sue’s daughter is getting married. While Lara brims over with excitement, Sue grits her teeth and wonders how she will endure it. The wedding will force her to come to terms with her own, very different circumstances: the end of her long marriage, her estranged husband and his new partner and questions she has tried very hard to push away. Can she find the strength to face very a different future than she imagined?
    World Premiere in 2018 at Newcastle Theatre Company (Australia). Staged reading with Women's Theatre Festival Occupy the Stage NC 2018. Public reading as part of International Women's Voices Day in by Pigeonhole Theatre in Canberra Australia 2018. Fantastic roles for women.
  • Water Child
    Winner: Best New Play, City of Newcastle Drama Awards (Australia), 2012.
    Full length drama. Jeannie and Mark are an admirable couple. They are successful, confident, fulfilled - or so it appears. But unlike others who have effortlessly brought children into the world, they have not. Jeannie’s 40th birthday is a night planned for celebration, but events lead them to an abyss which threatens to engulf...
    Winner: Best New Play, City of Newcastle Drama Awards (Australia), 2012.
    Full length drama. Jeannie and Mark are an admirable couple. They are successful, confident, fulfilled - or so it appears. But unlike others who have effortlessly brought children into the world, they have not. Jeannie’s 40th birthday is a night planned for celebration, but events lead them to an abyss which threatens to engulf them and all they have built together. Family and friends weigh in with well-meant but not always well worded advice. But what do you say when no one knows why you can’t do what everyone else can? And when it’s too hard to talk about it at all? And how do you prevent two people mired in shame and panic pushing you away?
    One in six couples struggle with fertility. And yet the subject remains taboo. Award winning Australian play Water Child, with both humour and pathos, offers a rare glimpse the myriad of difficulties faced by so many – and talked about by so few.
  • Women of the World
    10 minute action comedy. Ready to take on the world, three young women in their first share house celebrate their independence before an uninvited guest upsets the party.
  • Real World 101
    Ten minute satirical comedy. In a whirlwind workplace induction, two new recruits are introduced to the world of strained acronyms and baffling procedures. Their new boss showcases an unparalleled ability to domineer staff and clients, while her hapless underling provides the back up. The recruits’ responses to their new world are very different.
  • Voices
    Ten minute zoom dark comedy. Kate takes a zoom counselling session with Jacqui to take a break from the ongoing slog of single parenting in lockdown, and the revelations and insights take some surprisings turns.