Emma Watkins

Emma Watkins

Emma Watkins is a playwright, dramaturg, and performer. With the support of a Fulbright Award, Emma spent a year in Wales, studying performance adaptations of Welsh myths and folklore. Her research culminated with the creation of a new play, UNBECOMING, which has been developed in collaborations with PlayPenn, Princeton University, and Cardiff University (UK). It will receive its first full production with...
Emma Watkins is a playwright, dramaturg, and performer. With the support of a Fulbright Award, Emma spent a year in Wales, studying performance adaptations of Welsh myths and folklore. Her research culminated with the creation of a new play, UNBECOMING, which has been developed in collaborations with PlayPenn, Princeton University, and Cardiff University (UK). It will receive its first full production with Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts in 2020. Her plays have also been shared at McCarter Theatre Lab, Chapter Arts Centre (UK), and Theatre Intime. She was recently nominated for the NTC’s Barry and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award. As a dramaturg and literary assistant, Emma has assisted on productions of GLORIA: A LIFE, MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN, SLEUTH, and the world premiere of Rachel Bond’s GOODNIGHT NOBODY (McCarter Theatre Center) as well as INTO THE WOODS (dir. Ethan Heard, Lewis Center for the Arts).

Plays

  • Unbecoming by Emma Watkins
    Recommendations: 1
    ·
    Cast: 
    5–10
    ·
    Genre: adaptation, biography + 4 more
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    Keyword: mythology, Celtic + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, biography, docudrama/historic, drama, fable/folktale, period
    Keyword: mythology, Celtic, Metamorphosis
    Charlotte Guest is a Victorian housewife and the mother of seven. Much to her husband’s dismay, she also aspires to be the first to translate into English an ancient collection of Welsh myths called the Mabinogion. As she translates, she encounters the story of a woman conjured from flowers – a woman forced to become a wife, who is then metamorphosed into an owl as punishment for her infidelity. In...
    Charlotte Guest is a Victorian housewife and the mother of seven. Much to her husband’s dismay, she also aspires to be the first to translate into English an ancient collection of Welsh myths called the Mabinogion. As she translates, she encounters the story of a woman conjured from flowers – a woman forced to become a wife, who is then metamorphosed into an owl as punishment for her infidelity. In translating the story of the Woman of Flowers, Charlotte must confront the feminine role that she both endures and perpetuates.
  • The Norns of Athens, Maine by Emma Watkins
    Cast: 
    2–4
    ·
    Genre: fable/folktale, immersive
    Genre: fable/folktale, immersive
    Pas, Prësin, and Futur have lived in the Olde Olde Tree in the middle of the Athens dump for as long as anyone here can remember. They weave a knotted web of threads that dictate the lives and the deaths of all who live in Athens.

    This is the story of Hansel and Peter, who escaped from the Spencer Lake P.O.W. camp in 1943.
    It is the story of Minerva, who left her home in Boston in...
    Pas, Prësin, and Futur have lived in the Olde Olde Tree in the middle of the Athens dump for as long as anyone here can remember. They weave a knotted web of threads that dictate the lives and the deaths of all who live in Athens.

    This is the story of Hansel and Peter, who escaped from the Spencer Lake P.O.W. camp in 1943.
    It is the story of Minerva, who left her home in Boston in 1844.
    It is the story of a family headed towards Canada in search of Burger King in 2002.
    It is the story of a Moose and some Norns and the Olde Olde Tree that overlooks them all.
    It is a story of being forsaken, of wearing out a welcome, of manifest destiny unraveling.
  • Trailing Rhiannon by Emma Watkins
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: adaptation, fable/folktale + 2 more
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    Keyword: mythology, feminist + 1 more
    Genre: adaptation, fable/folktale, musical, period
    Keyword: mythology, feminist, Celtic
    TRAILING RHIANNON interweaves Celtic folksong and storytelling techniques to tell the story of a resilient Welsh heroine. Falsely accused of eating her own child, Rhiannon is forced to stand outside her home, stopping passersby to tell them the gruesome tale of a crime she did not commit. The story she shares follows the trail of her life: from the Otherworld to this one, past jealous princes and stones that...
    TRAILING RHIANNON interweaves Celtic folksong and storytelling techniques to tell the story of a resilient Welsh heroine. Falsely accused of eating her own child, Rhiannon is forced to stand outside her home, stopping passersby to tell them the gruesome tale of a crime she did not commit. The story she shares follows the trail of her life: from the Otherworld to this one, past jealous princes and stones that speak, surveyed by birds that dart across the sky with letters in their beaks. In the search for her story’s ending, Rhiannon discovers something all the more elusive – the proof of her innocence.
  • Ikea Play by Emma Watkins
    Cast: 
    3
    ·
    Genre: comedy, holiday
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    Keyword: coming home, quest + 3 more
    Genre: comedy, holiday
    Keyword: coming home, quest, New Jersey, magical realism, rabbit
    A ten-minute play about rabbit lost in Ikea, Christmas at a drive-in, and finding home in unexpected places.