Emily is a leading specialist in modern Shakespeare performance and a multi-award-winning writer and director.
She has worked at Shakespeare’s Globe since 2012, was President of Shakespeare training programme The Poel Event at the National Theatre, and now provides coaching and consultancy to actors and directors. She has several plays published and has had work commissioned and produced across the UK, including London's West End.
Emily grew up in rehearsal rooms watching her father, a theatre-and-screen director, working with actors. She was regularly immersed in Shakespeare rehearsals and, after specialising in Shakespeare at university, Emily went on to train as a theatre director at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
In 2012, Emily joined Shakespeare’s Globe theatre as a text practitioner coaching actors in Globe productions. Trained and mentored by Globe’s Head of Text, Giles Block, Emily went on to join Shakespeare’s Globe Higher Education Faculty and continues to coach both training and professional actors in the performance of Shakespeare.
Between 2014 and 2018, Emily was President of The Poel Event - an annual Shakespeare training programme for professional actors taking place at The National Theatre. Workshop leaders during Emily’s tenure included: Papaa Essiedu, Sir Timothy West, Blanche McIntire, Erica Whyman, Barbara Houseman, Jeanette Nelson, and Emily Jenkins.
Emily has spent the last decade working freelance as a Shakespeare and acting coach. Going wherever she is needed, she has worked across West End and regional theatres, as well as internationally and for television companies including ITV. She has coached and supported some of the top actors and directors in the country in a range of genres and mediums. For several years she taught the ‘performing Shakespeare’ courses at Northampton University and LAMDA, and was Shakespeare coach for multiple National Youth Theatre productions. She also privately coaches clients around the world, from those auditioning for drama school to household names.
As a writer, Emily has won multiple awards. Her first play, Rainbow, won the Scotsman Fringe First and she had her West End debut with her play Cookies at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. She went on to win her second Fringe First for Bobby & Amy, which toured the UK to rave reviews and is now in the process of being adapted into a screenplay. Bobby & Amy has also been translated into Italian and is regularly performed across Europe.
As a director, she has worked for venues across the UK. Her first professional production in 2009, Mojo Mickybo, was nominated for an Off-West-End Award and she has since won two Fringe Firsts for plays she has both written and directed (Rainbow; Bobby & Amy). She works regularly as a visiting director at conservatoire drama schools and directs professionally in London and across the UK.
She graduated from the National Film and Television School screenwriting course in 2022 and is currently working with Blue Horizon productions on the screenplay adaptation of Bobby & Amy.