Tatty Hennessy

Tatty Hennessy is an award-winning British playwright, dramaturg, screenwriter and director, recognised for her bold, imaginative storytelling and her distinctive voice in theatre for young audiences and contemporary UK stages.

Her breakthrough play A Hundred Words for Snow premiered at the Arcola Theatre before transferring to Trafalgar Studios in 2019, earning four Offie nominations including Best New Play and Most Promising New Playwright. Since then, Tatty has become a leading playwright for young audiences in the UK. In 2024, she was shortlisted for Polka Theatre’s inaugural Playwriting Award for The Elephant, and in 2025 her acclaimed adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm returned in a major co-production between Leeds Playhouse, Stratford East and Nottingham Playhouse, directed by Amy Leach. The production received an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Production in an Affiliate Theatre and won the UK Theatre Award for Best Play Revival.

Tatty continues to develop high-profile adaptations and new work. Her latest commission for the National Youth Theatre sees her reimagine Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the NYT Rep Company in February 2026. Her adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s The Sleeping Sword (Watermill Theatre, 2022) was widely praised for its pioneering creative-access approach, while other theatre work includes The Snow Queen (Theatre N16 / Brighton Open Air Theatre, 2020) and Wellies (English Touring Opera, 2024), an immersive opera for children aged 3–7.

Internationally, Tatty was commissioned by Burning Coal Theatre (North Carolina) to write A Great Big Woolly Mammoth Thawing From The Ice, which premiered in 2022. The same year, she was awarded a Writers’ Guild of Great Britain New Play Commission for Attrition, currently in development.

Alongside her theatre work, Tatty Hennessy is an emerging UK screenwriter. Her debut short film Afterburn was produced by HoneyBee Films, and she is an alumna of the Channel 4 Screenwriting Course. She is currently developing original television and film projects, as well as further stage adaptations, with leading independent production companies.