To celebrate 50 years of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, in 2024 ten Fellowships Awards, were granted to innovative, inspiring, boundary-stretching projects that honoured, celebrated and promoted playwriting in Scotland. Supported by The National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
About May
Described by The Scotsman as ‘one of the key creative figures in Scotland’s increasingly determined effort to come to terms with its own colonial past, and particularly with Scottish involvement in slavery and the slave trade,’ May Sumbwanyambe is an academic, radio dramatist and award-winning playwright from Edinburgh.
The Project
A Play investigating Chartism, Women’s Rights, Abolitionism and the Free Church in 1840’s Glasgow.
This project by May Sumbwanyambe covers a period of time for researching a new historical stage play. The project was inspired by the values of doctor, intellectual, abolitionist and a social justice advocate James McCune Smith. The play goes on to explore the legacy and impact of the Glasgow Emancipation Society of which he became a founding member of during the formative years (1830’s) he spent in Glasgow, living, studying and working not far from where the Tron Theatre now stands.
May’s project has been developed in partnership with the Tron Theatre, Glasgow.
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SSP@50 Fellowship Awards
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Elspeth Turner: Teud A’ Briseadh / A Breaking String
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Fergus Morgan: A History of Scottish Drama In Six Plays
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Jack Dickson: Off the Rails / Back on Track
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Jack MacGregor: Faultlines
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Kathy McKean: Archive Project
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Martin Travers: Crown of Straw
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May Sumbwanyambe: A Play investigating Chartism, Women’s Rights, Abolitionism and the Free Church in 1840’s Glasgow
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Michael John O’Neill: Interregnum (Working Title)
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Morna Young: No Ladies
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Rachael McGill: Stromness Plays