Hannah Lavery

Hannah Lavery (born 1977)[1] is a Scottish short story writer, poet, playwright and performer.[2] Her poetry and prose has been published by Gutter Magazine, The Scotsman newspaper, 404 Ink, and others.

Hannah Lavery
Born1977 (age 43–44)
OccupationWriter
Notable work
Lament for Sheku Bayoh
AwardsNew Playwright Award, 2019
Websitewww.hannahlavery.com

Work

Lavery's poetry pamphlet, Finding Seaglass: Poems from The Drift was published by Stewed Rhubarb Press in May 2019.[3] She has also been a featured poet at many spoken word and poetry nights including Neu! Reekie!, Sonnet Youth, and festivals including Stanza Poetry Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival. Lavery was awarded a Megaphone Residency for Artists of Colour by The Workers' Theatre in 2016.[4]

The Drift, her autobiographical play, was produced by National Theatre of Scotland and went on tour in 2019.[5][6][7]

Lavery's Lament for Sheku Bayoh, commissioned by the Royal Lyceum Theatre, was performed as a work in progress as part of the Edinburgh International Festival 2019.[8][9] Over the following year, the play was completed and reimagined for a digital audience and streamed from the stage of the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of a National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre co-production in 2020.[10][11][12] Sheku Bayoh was a 31 year-old gas engineer, husband and father of two who died in police custody in his home town, Kirkcaldy, Fife, on 3 May 2015. A personal response to this tragic event, Lament for Sheku Bayoh throws up questions of identity, community, and belonging in Scotland today, and is an instruction and a reflection on a life lost and the society—our society—who lost it and looked the other way. Critic Mark Fisher, writing in The Guardian, described the work as "...impassioned, poetic and alive with political import."[13] Joyce McMillan writing in The Scotsman described the production as "a beautiful and shattering ritual of rage and mourning that – in the year of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter – is both painfully familiar, and new in its insistence that here too, in bonnie Scotland, black people sometimes cannot breathe, purely because of the colour of their skin."[14] The play was written and directed by Lavery. The cast were Saskia Ashdown, Patricia Panther and Courtney Stoddart, with music by Beldina Odenyo/Heir of the Cursed.[15]

She has contributed to the BBC Radio 4 series The Poet and the Echo,[16] and has been announced as one of Imaginate's Accelerator artists,[17] where she will work on a new piece of writing for ages 10+ called The Protest. The work will explore the moments, the encounters and the individual and collective journey to The Protest and to activism of three young people.

Awards

In November 2019, Lavery was awarded a New Playwright Award from Playwrights Studio Scotland[18] and was named in The List magazine's Scottish Theatre Hot List for 2019.[19] In 2020, she was named as one on BBC Writers Room Scottish Voices of 2020,[20] as well as being chosen by poet and playwright Owen Sheers as one of ten writers currently asking questions that will shape the UK's future, as part of the British Council and National Centre for Writing's International Literature Showcase.[21]

References
  1. "Writer and performer Hannah Lavery: 'I have learned to lean in, to think that everything I'm doing is for a tiny room'". The Stage. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  2. "Hannah Lavery". Hannah Lavery. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  3. "Finding Sea Glass: Poems from The Drift by Hannah Lavery". Stewed Rhubarb Press. 2019-02-19. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  4. "The Workers Theatre". workerstheatre.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  5. "The Drift". National Theatre of Scotland. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  6. "'I love this country but there's a denial about Scotland's racism'". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  7. McEachern, Megan. "The Drift: Exploring Scotland's complicated relationship with race through performance". Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  8. Ltd, Whitespace (Scotland) (2021-01-29). "Call and Response: Lament for Sheku". Edinburgh International Festival. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  9. "Hannah Lavery on Lament for Sheku Bayoh: The Skinny". www.theskinny.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  10. Ltd, Whitespace (Scotland) (2020-11-06). "Hannah Lavery talks about Lament…". Edinburgh International Festival. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  11. "Lament for Sheku Bayoh | The Lyceum | Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh". lyceum.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  12. "Lament for Sheku Bayoh". National Theatre of Scotland. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  13. "Lament for Sheku Bayoh review – a stark critique of Scotland's self-image". The Guardian. 2020-11-20. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  14. "Theatre reviews: Lament For Sheku Bayoh | Eliza | Fibres". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  15. "Beldina Odenyo". National Theatre of Scotland. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  16. "The Idler". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  17. "Accelerator - Hannah Lavery — Imaginate". www.imaginate.org.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  18. "Playwrights' Studio, Scotland | Playwrights". www.playwrightsstudio.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  19. "The Hot 100 2019: Theatre & Dance". The List. 2019-11-01. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  20. "The Scottish Voices 2020". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
  21. "Hannah Lavery". National Centre for Writing. Retrieved 2021-01-29.
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