Morna Young is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Moray. She was named Scots Writer of the Year at the inaugural Scots Language Awards in 2019. Most recently, she won the Peggy Ramsay/Film 4 Playwriting Bursary (Traverse), and received an SSP@50 Fellowship (Aberdeen Arts Centre).

Lost at Sea, Morna’s debut full-length play in 2019, won two Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS), a Broadway World Award and was a finalist in the Herald’s Culture Awards. She also wrote the CATS-winning Runrig musical The Stamping Ground (Eden Court / Raw Material), that toured Scotland in 2023. Her most recent productions include Sunset Song (Dundee Rep / Lyceum) and The Snow Queen (Lyceum).

Other plays include: Babs, Aye, Elvis, The Silver Superheroes, and Netting (all ‘A Play, A Pie and A Pint’), Americana: A Murder Ballad (Pepperdine Scotland at Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Smothes Theatre, California), The Buke of the Howlat (Findhorn Bay Arts), Smite (Jermyn Street Theatre), She of the Sea (Paines Plough), B-Roads (Play Pieces) and Never Land (Eden Court). Digital work released in 2020/21 includes A Fairy Tale (Lyceum), A Passing Dance (Pitlochry Festival Theatre), Stella (Mull Theatre), The Twa Chrisses (Scots Language Centre), and Demon Island (Traverse). Morna is currently working with the Lyceum, Traverse, Rapture Theatre, and Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Morna has also been writing for screen since receiving the BBC Scotland scholarship 2020 including four episodes of River City (BBC Scotland) - the first of which received a Debut Writer nomination at the New Voices Awards, 2023. She is also part of the writers' room and an episode writer for Black Camel's Gifted, and she is currently developing a range of TV and film projects.

Morna was recipient of the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship (2017), a New Playwrights Award (Playwrights' Studio, Scotland, 2014) and the ‘Tomorrow at Noon’ award for female playwrights  (Jermyn Street Theatre, 2018). Her international work includes The Traverse’s ‘Scotland-in-Japan’ residency, playwright-in-residence for BATS Theatre in New Zealand for three-months and a Rome residency as part of the Muriel Spark 100 awards.

As a working-class woman and native Scots language speaker, Morna is interested in exploring under-represented voices and her plays often explore class structures. She is also a multi-instrumentalist, half of the band Folkify along with Sandy Nelson, and regularly works with music and song.

Outside of theatre and screen, Morna can be found writing for Psychologies, the UK’s no.1 well-being magazine.

Full information at www.mornayoung.com

TELEVISION

2023     RIVER CITY, #24.69 BBC Scotland

2022     RIVER CITY, #24.11 BBC Scotland

DIGITAL

2022     DEMON ISLAND: TAKEO’S TALE Traverse Theatre

2021     THE TWA CHRISSES Scots Language Centre / Scottish Government

2020     A FAIRY TALE Lyceum Theatre ‘Christmas Tales’ series, dir: Zinnie Harris

2020     A PASSING DANCE Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s ‘#LightHopeJoy’ series, dir: Amy Liptrott

RECENT THEATRE INCLUDES:

2023     BABS ‘A Play, A Pie and a Pint’ at Oran Mor (Glasgow), The Lemon Tree (Aberdeen), and Traverse (Edinburgh)

2023     THE STAMPING GROUND: A RUNRIG MUSICAL Eden Court Theatre / Raw Material Arts (Scotland wide tour)

2022     AMERICANA: A MURDER BALLAD Pepperdine Scotland at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

2021     THE SILVER SUPERHEROES  ‘A Play, A Pie and a Pint’ at Oran Mor and The Lemon Tree

2021     AYE, ELVIS Traverse Theatre at MultiStory / Edinburgh Fringe Festival