About Emma
Emma works across new writing, opera, music theatre, live art, and ‘classic’ theatre with a particular interest in early modern theatre and the Restoration. Her practice combines deep historical research, close textual reading, contemporary theatre aesthetics, multidisciplinary analysis, and heightened language and physicality. Throughout her work, Emma has a mission to platform historically marginalised voices and interrogate canonical ones.
Originally from Los Angeles, Emma studied literature at Sarah Lawrence College and relocated to London. She received an MA in Shakespeare Studies from Kings College London and Shakespeare’s Globe before training in MFA Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.
At the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Emma directed and dramaturged the premieres of two new plays: How I Learned to Swim by Somebody Jones (Paines Plough Roundabout @ Summerhall) and REVENGE: After the Levoyah by Nick Cassenbaum (Anatomy Lecture Hall, Summerhall). For her direction across both productions, Emma was awarded The Stage Fringe Five 2024, and REVENGE: After the Levoyah was awarded a Fringe first. How I Learned to Swim toured to Brixton House and Bristol Old Vic Theatre in September 2024. REVENGE: After the Levoyah transferred to the Yard Theatre in January 2025 for an extended, sell-out run.
Previous directing credits include: Antisemitism: a (((musical)))) at Camden People's Theatre, The Retreat at the Finborough Theatre, Amy Beach's chamber opera Cabildo at Wilton's Music Hall and the Arcola, eco-noir socialist operatic film The Agency by Sarah Sigal and Matthew Olyver at Tête-à-Tête, and a livestreamed, OnComm award-nominated production of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone. Emma has directed readings and R & Ds at theatres including Soho Theatre, the Bush, Park Theatre, artsdepot, the Kiln, and the Gate.
Emma directs and teaches at drama schools including RADA, CSSD, LAMDA, Guildhall, Mountview, Rose Bruford, East 15, and Oxford School of Drama. Emma is passionate about actor training, and empowering the next generation of artists to make radical work safely and inclusively.
Dramaturgy and research consulting credits include: dramaturg on Wahnfried: The Birth of the Wagner Cult (Longborough Festival Opera, directed by Polly Graham); Watch on the Rhine (Donmar Warehouse, directed by Ellen McDougall); research consultant on The Mosinee Project (Underbelly Cowgate, directed by Nikhil Vyas); research consultant on Venice Preserved (Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah), and research assistant on Absolute Hell (National Theatre, directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins).
Emma worked across English Touring Opera's autumn 2023 season, as associate director to Robin Norton-Hale The Coronation of Poppea and as assistant director to Jenny Ogilvie on Cinderella. Emma was associate director to Polly Graham on The Fairy Queen at Longborough Festival Opera in 2023.
From 2018-2023, Emma was co-founder of Global Origins, a network and platform for international, diasporic, and multicultural artists. Global Origins partnered with the Gate Theatre on REROUTED.
Emma is the recipient of a Global Talent visa.
She is represented by Maddie O'Dwyer at Berlin Associates.