Emma Watkins is a playwright from New Jersey.

Her plays include Pretend it’s Pretend (Ashland New Plays Festival, New Dramatists’ Princess Grace Award Runner Up, Kennedy Center Paula Vogel Prize Runner Up) and Elizabeth is going into the ground (Leah Ryan FEWW Prize Honorable Mention, Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist, New Dramatists’ Princess Grace Award Finalist).  She’s been a semi-finalist for Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, the Clubbed Thumb’s Biennial Commission and the O’Neill Playwrights Festival, and included on the Playwrights’ Center’s Venturous List.  She’s developed work with support from the Kennedy Center, Theatre Masters’ Take Ten Festival, PlayPenn, Scriptworks, and Chapter Arts (UK).  She’s been published by Concord Theatricals/Sam French and Routledge. 

She is under commission from the Atlantic Theatre Company, South Coast Repertory and Ensemble Studio Theatre/Sloan. 

BA in English, Theatre, and Environmental Studies from Princeton University.  MA in Welsh and Celtic Studies from Fulbright / Cardiff University.  MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin.

Beyond writing, she loves foraging for chanterelles, shape-note singing, and listening for hermit thrushes on the Appalachian Trail.

NEWS
Pretend it’s Pretend is one of the four winners of the Ashland New Play Festival. I’ll be out there for the festival in October!
I was named a semifinalist for the 2025 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship
I received an EST/Sloan Commission to write my play Very Rapidly, Over A Few Tens of Thousands of Years
Pretend it’s Pretend was named the Runner-Up for the 2024 Princess Grace Award from New Dramatists
The Courtship Ritual of Sandhill Cranes was part of the Take Ten Theatre Masters Festival in NY
Elizabeth is going into the ground had a reading at the Kennedy Center KCACTF Festival
Pretend it’s Pretend was performed as part of the UTNT (UT New Theatre) Festival in Austin TX