I am a London-based writer (and a Londoner born and bred) in comedy and drama. My pronouns are she/her and am proudly part of the LGBTQIA+ community. I have a chronic mental health condition which I'm not exactly proud of but does shape my work and I make the best cup of tea in North London (except for that cafe next to the Old Red Lion Theatre, so second best).

 

I'm not a performer so I tend to be the one taking photographs rather than posing but this is me:

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In case you're interested here is a brief biography written in the third person to make it sound like someone else wrote it (they didn't) so I can mention good things I've done whilst still being British (this entire nation needs therapy):

 

Katharine directed her first show aged 12 when she set up a community theatre company with a group of local kids and friends: The Blue Hutch Theatre Company. The company ran for 10 years during which time Katharine directed five Christmas shows and then mentored younger members as they tried their hand at directing. She set up the summer production arm of the company in 2008 which introduced local adults into the cast and went on to direct four outdoor Shakespeare productions.

 

Katharine attended Haberdashers' School for Girls where she was Drama prefect and was awarded the Veronica Castang prize for drama. During her time there she acted in and directed a number of productions including directing a sixth form production of Much Ado About Nothing which was a new project for the school and involved over a third of the sixth form. She went on to study English Literature at the University of Manchester and graduated in 2010 with a 2.1 BA (Hons) and having won three academic prizes for her work whilst studying. During her time at University Katharine was Head Of Speech for student radio station Fuse FM and ran the radio drama competition PlayTime in conjunction with the BBC. She wrote three radio plays during this time: Past Birmingham, Imaginary Cinema and Exit, pursued by conviction as well as writing and recording a number of on-going comedy parody shows. In theatre she directed Noises Off  and The Pillowman  and produced Hangover Square.

 

On graduating Katharine went to work for the Jill Freud Company as an ASM on their production of Abigail's Party  which had runs in both Southwold and Aldeburgh Theatres. Returning to London she worked as Assistant Director at the Arcola Theatre on The Cradle Will Rock. The theatre asked her to return to be assistant direct The Painter, a new play by Rebecca Lenkiewicz starring Toby Jones as Turner. This show opened the new Arcola Theatre and was directed by Artistic Director Mehmet Ergen. Katharine then went on to assist Helena Kaut-Howson on Uncle Vanya and was assistant director on The Bible at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

 

In 2012 Katharine set up her theatre company Tea Break Theatre (www.teabreaktheatre.com) and took their first show Punch & Judy to the Pleasance Theatre at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The show went on to a London transfer at Arcola theatre. Later that same year she wrote and directed The Mortals in the House, an adaptation of Elizabeth's Gaskell's ghost stories performed at her Manchester home. In 2013 the company created outdoor promenade show Five Children and It which sold out and went on to a further two runs.

 

Also in 2013, Katharine directed NewsRevue and, with the cast from this show, set up parallel universe comedy group zazU (www.zazucomedy.com). The group have performed at Soho Theatre, Underbelly, Pleasance, Alphabetti, Gilded Balloon, the Museum of Comedy and Leicester Square theatre to name a few. 

 

2014 saw the re-runs of Five Children and It, two Edinburgh shows: zazU  at Underbelly and Somebody I Used to Know at Assembly, and her directing the wonderful piece of new writing from Miran Hadzic The Love and Devotion of Ridley Smith at the Old Red Lion Theatre. She also wrote her play After Party about the composer Franz Schubert which was performed by Re:Sound as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival.

 

In 2015 Katharine brought back shows Somebody I Used to Know and After Party, the latter of which won the Buxton Fringe New Writing Award. She wrote the libretto for opera Thousand Furs. With her comedy group zazU she spent a second year at the Ed Fringe with their new show which is going on to Brighton and London shows. She signed with agent Stephanie Moore at United Agents.

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2016 saw the creation of a new zazU show which previewed at Museum of Comedy before running at Gilded Balloon as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. Re:Sound commissioned her to write Duet about the lives and music of Robert and Clara Schumann. She was a finalist for the Red Planet Prize. New puppetry show Bobbin! toured over the Spring and Summer. 

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In 2017 Katharine turned her focus to screenwriting. She studied briefly at NFTS and was one of the writers for the BBC's Holby City Shadow Writers Scheme. zazU performed their trilogy of shows at Soho Theatre and Katharine created two Hallowe'en shows both of which sold out and brought in new audiences of young people. In 2018 zazU developed new comedy game show zazUtinany and Katharine wrote and directed Frankenstein - with a female 'creature '- to celebrate the publication of that extraordinary book 200 years ago. 

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The following year Katharine was a finalist the Funny Women's Writing Award for her sitcom 'Virgins' and was commissioned to write a Doctor Who audio for Big Finish. These two achievements both had a 'dream come true' quality to them so therefore it oughtn't really to come as a surprise to a writer that the following year brought lockdown and certain less dream-like qualities to a writing career. 

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However Katharine has managed to write her first script for a VR game and a script to accompany choral works that commemorates the sailing of the Mayflower which was filmed in 2020. Refusing to allow theatre to stop, she wrote and directed two shows on Zoom for families: The Snow Queen and Sleeping Beauty? Both shows had 'choose your own ticket price options' and free tickets given to refugee families to make the shows accessible. Lockdown also gave her an opportunity to update her website...

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Currently, Katharine is writing a lot of science fiction things for Big Finish and finishing a new play.