isla cowan
Isla is a Scottish playwright, performer and director, currently based in Edinburgh. She specialises in creating ecofeminist work and believes in theatre that challenges both its audience and its makers.
Isla studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge, before going on to study a Masters in Writing for Performance at the University of St Andrews. Her previous work for stage includes, Sno Wite and the Seven Dickensians (Scottish Storytelling Centre, 2019), The View from Portobello (Royal Lyceum, 2018), BANTER (LYT/Traverse, 2017), These Walls (Sweet Venues, 2017), Come Back to Bed (Fitzpatrick Theatre, 2017), and Lily (Corpus Playroom, 2016). Isla was winner of the Cambridge New Writing Festival in 2017 for her short play, Waiting, and has since participated in several writing festivals, including REP STRIPPED (Dundee Rep, 2019). Isla was recently Assistant Director on GUT (Traverse/NTS, 2018) and The Duchess [of Malfi] (Lyceum/Citizens, 2019) and was attached to Hampstead Theatre as a mentored playwright, as part of the Inspire Programme (2019-20).
Isla's fierce, four-star ecofeminist play, Daphne, or Hellfire, is fresh from performances at The Pleasance (The Greenhouse) and Assembly Roxy and will soon be announcing dates for 2020. Isla is also working on a brand new solo show, She-Wolf, which explores speciesism, trauma and folklore, in an exciting combination of monologue, storytelling and physical theatre.
