New ideas

Dr Cooper,  Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing in Newcastle University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics is joined in the role by writer Stewart Pringle. They will lead the New Works team at the RSC and develop their own writing. Their work with the team will include mentoring playwrights, developing new ideas and establishing new ways of supporting writers. Both Zoe and Stewart will take up their new roles in November.

Dr Cooper said:  “I am so thrilled to be coming to the RSC alongside the brilliant Stewart Pringle. To be given the opportunity to call somewhere home as a playwright is really rare. Rarer still in a theatre that has such a rich history and as it starts to write its next exciting chapter. I am greatly looking forward to being part of a team that I know will help lots of other writers feel like the Company can be a home for them too. Can’t wait!”

Dr Cooper’s plays include Northanger Abbey, inspired by the Austen novel, (Orange Tree Theatre, Bolton Octagon, TBTL and SJT), an adaptation of David Almond’s novel A Song for Ella Grey (Pilot/Northern Stage and touring), Out of Water (Orange Tree) and Jess and Joe Forever (Orange Tree, touring and Traverse).

She has been shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright Award, the Women’s Playwriting Prize and was the winner of the Off West End Most Promising Playwright Award. Alongside her work as a playwright, she has a background in dramaturgy and literary management. Zoe will be seconded from her role at Newcastle University, where she has worked for the last eight years after completing her PhD.

Hugely exciting

RSC Co-Artistic Directors, Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans said: “We are absolutely delighted to welcome Stewart and Zoe to the RSC as our Writers-in-Residence. To be working with not one but two playwrights of their calibre is a hugely exciting prospect and holds true to our commitment to place artists at the heart of everything we do. They will be key to forging meaningful and inclusive relationships with new and established artists, whilst unlocking innovative approaches to how we make work.”