Libby Allen holds a double Honours (Cum Laude) Degree in Drama and English Studies and a Masters Degree in English (Creative Writing), through the University of KwaZulu-Natal. For her MA, Libby completed her first novel and has recently written the short film A Wake for the Durban International Film Festival. As a performer, Libby has played on Durban stages, at the National Arts Festivals and the RITU Festival, Liege, Belgium. She has directed productions for the National Arts Festivals, the Playhouse Company’s New Stages Seasons, Uplands and Cape Town Festivals and schools nationwide. Her major collaboration is her work with Iain Ewok Robinson, whose award-winning One Mind, One Mouth, One Mic performed around South Africa and Botswana, and the Regional and National Schools Festivals in 2006. In the same year, Libby joined Ewok onstage in Sweden as an invited poet at the Uppsala International Poetry Festival. Spitfire, their second production together, was awarded the Audience Choice and ‘Best of the Festival’ trophy at PANSA’s Musho! Festival and played to great acclaim at the 2008 Uppsala International Poetry Festival. Libby has created and led two writing and performance workshops for school pupils: Poetry off the Page and What’s the Word: Get Writing. In 2009, Libby directed Neil Coppen’s Tree Boy, for The Playhouse Company. Libby is currently based in Johannesburg, where she has worked as an editor, freelance writer and teacher.
