We are saddened to hear of the death of Oliver Emanuel. He was an internationally award-winning playwright who wrote over thirty plays for both stage and radio. His theatre works include The 306: Trilogy – Dawn, Day & Dusk, Dragon, The Monstrous Heart, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, and the acclaimed Flight. For radio, he wrote Pale Fire, Lanny, The Tenderness of Boys, When The Pips Stop, The Truth About Hawaii, A History of Paper, and the multi-play cycle Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money, all for BBC Radio 4.
He was Reader of Playwriting at the University of St Andrews where he created the MLitt in Playwriting & Screenwriting with Zinnie Harris.
Olly was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute in summer 2022, working on a new project titled Authorship, exploring questions around creativity and what it means to be human when faced with the impending singularity. Excerpts from this work-in-progress were presented at the Traverse Theatre in November 2022 as part of the Being Human Festival of the Humanities.
Ben Fletcher-Watson, IASH Deputy Director, said, "Olly was loved and admired across the theatre community for his generosity of spirit and kindness towards other artists at all career stages. He advised, nurtured and inspired so many during his life. His works - especially perhaps his ground-breaking plays for children and young people - will be remembered for generations to come."
Our thoughts are with his family.
Tributes: