Hannah Lavery
{{Short description|Scottish writer, poet, performer (born 1977)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Hannah Lavery
| occupation = Writer
| notable_works = Lament for Sheku Bayoh
| awards = New Playwright Award, 2019
| website = {{URL|www.hannahlavery.com}}
}}
Hannah Lavery is a Scottish poet, playwright and performer.{{Cite web|title=Hannah Lavery|url=https://www.hannahlavery.com/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=Hannah Lavery|language=en-US}} Her poetry and prose has been published by Gutter Magazine, The Scotsman newspaper, 404 Ink, and others. In September 2021 she took on the role of Edinburgh Makar.{{Cite web |last=Lloyd |first=Karen |title=Award-winning poet and playwright Hannah Lavery put forward as new Edinburgh Makar |url=https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/13297/award-winning-poet-and-playwright-hannah-lavery-put-forward-as-new-edinburgh-makar |access-date=2022-04-12 |website=The City of Edinburgh Council |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Dunbar poet named as next Edinburgh Makar |url=https://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/19594020.dunbar-poet-hannah-lavery-named-edinburgh-makar/ |access-date=2022-04-12 |website=East Lothian Courier |language=en}}
Work
Lavery's poetry pamphlet, Finding Seaglass: Poems from The Drift was published by Stewed Rhubarb Press in May 2019.{{Cite web|date=2019-02-19|title=Finding Sea Glass: Poems from The Drift by Hannah Lavery|url=https://stewedrhubarb.org/product/finding-sea-glass/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=Stewed Rhubarb Press|language=en-US}} She has also been a featured poet at many spoken word and poetry nights including Neu! Reekie!, Sonnet Youth, and festivals including Stanza Poetry Festival and Edinburgh International Book Festival. Lavery was awarded a Megaphone Residency for Artists of Colour by The Workers' Theatre in 2016.{{Cite web|title=The Workers Theatre|url=http://workerstheatre.co.uk/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=workerstheatre.co.uk}}
The Drift, her autobiographical play, was produced by National Theatre of Scotland and went on tour in 2019.{{Cite web|title=The Drift|url=https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/past-performances/the-drift|access-date=2021-01-29|website=National Theatre of Scotland|language=en}}{{Cite web|title='I love this country but there's a denial about Scotland's racism'|url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_ents/17913183.hannah-lavery-grieving-father-play-drift/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=HeraldScotland|language=en}}{{cite web|first1=Megan|last1=McEachern|accessdate=2021-01-29|title=The Drift: Exploring Scotland's complicated relationship with race through performance|url=https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/the-drift-exploring-scotlands-complicated-relationship-with-race-through-performance/}}
Lavery's Lament for Sheku Bayoh, commissioned by the Royal Lyceum Theatre, was performed as a work in progress as part of the Edinburgh International Festival 2019.{{Cite web|last=Ltd|first=Whitespace (Scotland)|date=2021-01-29|title=Call and Response: Lament for Sheku|url=https://www.eif.co.uk/whats-on/2019/shekubayoh|access-date=2021-01-29|website=Edinburgh International Festival|language=en}}{{cite web|accessdate=2021-01-29|title=Hannah Lavery on Lament for Sheku Bayoh: The Skinny|url=https://www.theskinny.co.uk/theatre/interviews/lament-for-sheku-bayoh-hannah-lavery|website=www.theskinny.co.uk}} Over the following year, the play was completed and reimagined for a digital audience and streamed from the stage of the Royal Lyceum Theatre as part of a National Theatre of Scotland, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre co-production in 2020.{{Cite web|last=Ltd|first=Whitespace (Scotland)|date=2020-11-06|title=Hannah Lavery talks about Lament…|url=https://www.eif.co.uk/festival-guide/news-and-blogs/hannahlavery-shekubayoh|access-date=2021-01-29|website=Edinburgh International Festival|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Lament for Sheku Bayoh {{!}} The Lyceum {{!}} Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh|url=https://lyceum.org.uk/whats-on/production/lament-for-sheku-bayoh|access-date=2021-01-29|website=lyceum.org.uk|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Lament for Sheku Bayoh|url=https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/past-performances/lamentforshekubayoh|access-date=2021-01-29|website=National Theatre of Scotland|language=en}} Sheku Bayoh was a 31-year-old gas engineer, husband and father of two who died in police custody in his home town, Kirkcaldy, Fife, on 3 May 2015. A personal response to this tragic event, Lament for Sheku Bayoh throws up questions of identity, community, and belonging in Scotland today, and is an instruction and a reflection on a life lost and the society—our society—who lost it and looked the other way. Critic Mark Fisher, writing in The Guardian, described the work as "...impassioned, poetic and alive with political import."{{Cite web|date=2020-11-20|title=Lament for Sheku Bayoh review – a stark critique of Scotland's self-image|url=http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/nov/20/lament-for-sheku-bayoh-review-scotland-2015-death-police-custody-gas-engineer|access-date=2021-01-29|website=The Guardian|language=en}} Joyce McMillan writing in The Scotsman described the production as "a beautiful and shattering ritual of rage and mourning that – in the year of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter – is both painfully familiar, and new in its insistence that here too, in bonnie Scotland, black people sometimes cannot breathe, purely because of the colour of their skin."{{Cite web|title=Theatre reviews: Lament For Sheku Bayoh {{!}} Eliza {{!}} Fibres|url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/theatre-and-stage/theatre-reviews-lament-sheku-bayoh-eliza-fibres-3045624|access-date=2021-01-29|website=www.scotsman.com|language=en}} The play was written and directed by Lavery. The cast were Saskia Ashdown, Patricia Panther and Courtney Stoddart, with music by Beldina Odenyo/Heir of the Cursed.{{Cite web|title=Beldina Odenyo|url=https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/profile/beldina-odenyo|access-date=2021-01-29|website=National Theatre of Scotland|language=en}}
She has contributed to the BBC Radio 4 series The Poet and the Echo,{{cite web|accessdate=2021-01-29|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l8fl|website=www.bbc.co.uk|title=The Idler}} and has been announced as one of Imaginate's Accelerator artists,{{Cite web|title=Accelerator - Hannah Lavery — Imaginate|url=https://www.imaginate.org.uk/artists/projects/accelerator-hannah-lavery/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=www.imaginate.org.uk}} where she will work on a new piece of writing for ages 10+ called The Protest. The work will explore the moments, the encounters and the individual and collective journey to The Protest and to activism of three young people.
Awards
In November 2019, Lavery was awarded a New Playwright Award from Playwrights Studio Scotland{{Cite web|title=Playwrights' Studio, Scotland {{!}} Playwrights|url=https://www.playwrightsstudio.co.uk/playwrights/hannah-lavery.aspx|access-date=2021-01-29|website=www.playwrightsstudio.co.uk}} and was named in The List magazine's Scottish Theatre Hot List for 2019.{{Cite web|date=2019-11-01|title=The Hot 100 2019: Theatre & Dance|url=https://www.list.co.uk/article/112292-the-hot-100-2019-theatre-and-dance/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=The List|language=en-GB}} In 2020, she was named as one on BBC Writers Room Scottish Voices of 2020,{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/entries/0553782f-a061-404a-81ca-c275cb9fc51e|access-date=2021-01-29|title=The Scottish Voices 2020|website=www.bbc.co.uk}} as well as being chosen by poet and playwright Owen Sheers as one of ten writers currently asking questions that will shape the UK's future, as part of the British Council and National Centre for Writing's International Literature Showcase.{{Cite web|title=Hannah Lavery|url=https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/owen-sheers-writers/hannah-lavery/|access-date=2021-01-29|website=National Centre for Writing}}
References
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