grace joy howarth
Playwright, composer, lyricist, author and musician.
bio
Grace Joy Howarth is a playwright, author, and musician from London. She has a First Class Bachelors of Arts degree in Songwriting from the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance.
She co-produced her play Blood on Your Hands at Southwark Playhouse Borough with Patch Plays from January 17th-February 3rd 2024. It is a contemporary play focusing on slaughterhouse workers, with themes of xenophobia, toxic masculinity and the cycle of exploitation. It was successfully funded by Arts Council England for an R&D premiere at the Cockpit Theatre, and was performed in variety nights at the Union Theatre, Barons Court Theatre and the Greenhouse Theatre. It was nominated for an Offie Award, shortlisted and longlisted for national awards such as BBC Writersroom, the New Diorama Theatre Untapped Award, the Phoebe Frances Brown Award, the London Library Emerging Writers Programme, and the Masterclass Pitch Your Play award.
Her children's musical Birdie's Adventures in the Animal Kingdom, also produced by Patch Plays, was commissioned by the Harrow Arts Centre. This fun-filled environmental show for 5-8 year olds had an ACE funded R&D sharing at the Polka Theatre. In 2023, Grace co-produced the show at the zero-waste Greenhouse Theatre in Canary Wharf.
Her radio play 'Until We Can't See the Sky' was self-produced on Resonance FM and Chapel FM.
Her historical children's musical, Radioboy, co-written with Daniella Livingstone, workshopped at the Pleasance Theatre. This piece was shortlisted in the New York New Plays for Young Audiences showcase, longlisted in the British Youth Music Theatre Award, and they are currently recording a concept album of the piece.
She is an Advanced Lyricist at the Musical Theatre course BML (Book, Music & Lyric.)
Thirteen of her short stories have been published, through the H.G. Wells Anthology, The National Archives, Squaw Pies Publishing, Be Animal, Jerry Jazz Musician, Selenite Press, Livina Press, Miniskirt Magazine, Londemere Lit, Spaceports & Spidersilk, and Dollar Store Mag.
Extracts of her first play She is Taken Lightly have been performed at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester as part of Julie Hesmondhalgh's 'Take Back Our Girls' political scratch night. It has also had scratch performances at The Southwark Playhouse, Katzspace Theatre and the The Young Vic.
Grace has completed four full-length plays, a TV show pilot, two musicals, a novel, and countless other short plays, short stories and songs. She finds joy in writing for compelling feminist narratives, and in work that has a social, environmental focus, with an important story to tell.
