writer - actor - artist - facilitator
As a playwright, poet and theatre-maker, Rowan is inspired by the manifestations and metaphors of horror and science fiction. Their work uses humour, dread, and the unexpected to explore themes of childhood, gender and transformation.
Rowan's poetry has been published in anthology by Tapsalteerie, and they have performed readings of their work at Generator Projects (Dundee), Queer Chronicles (Kirkcaldy), Aberdeen University’s WayWord Festival, and featured at 2024’s The Wee Gaitherin Festival (Stonehaven).
A skilled improviser and physical performer, Rowan has worked as an actor in the research & development of new writing and performance, collaborating with artists, companies and youth groups. A 2021 graduate of Acting & Performance in Dundee, their interest in improvisation and clowning has lead them to further training with Jordan & Skinner, The Acting Lab, and Activist Clowning with Robyn Hambrook from The Bristol Clown School.
With over 12 years of experience in workshop design and delivery across drama, devised theatre, science communication and health education, their most recent work has been in drama facilitation and devised performance with young people. Through drama and theatre-making, Rowan’s facilitation celebrates the individuals in the room and makes a special place for play, connection, creativity and political exploration.
As a visual artist, Rowan's mixed-media work includes collage, sculpture and vast quantities of glitter in a genre they describe as "passive-aggressive." Their traditional drawings are alive with the strangeness of organic shapes.
Click through for clowns, cosmetics, and class warfare.
Collaborations, artist development, and other performance work.
Writing for Theatre - Lead Artist, PYT Masterclasses
Perth Theatre & Concert Hall, upcoming July 2026
Nova Project - Assistant Director, Community Company
Stellar Quines, February 2026-present
Falkirk Youth Theatre - Assistant Director
SURGE, March 2026
Perth Community Street Theatre Tour - Trainee Director
SURGE and Perth Theatre & Concert Hall, August-September 2025
Frankie Stein - Community Company Associate
Stellar Quines, February-April 2025
Theatre Insights - Lead Engagement Artist
Capital Theatres, July 2025, July 2024, and upcoming July 2026.
Perth Youth Theatre - Lead Artist (P1-3)
Perth Theatre & Concert Hall, September 2024-June 2025
P1-P7 Summer School - Lead Artist (P1-3)
Perth Theatre & Concert Hall, July 2024
Perth Youth Theatre - Creative Assistant (S1-S3)
Perth Theatre & Concert Hall, April-June 2024
Younger Quines and Young Quines - Creative Practitioner
Stellar Quines, February 2023-August 2024
werewolf
my eyes hole-punched
scrap-paper mouth gasping
let the moonlight inlet light flood fast as air, clear as breath, make milk-pools in the grain of my skinlet it coat me, sear me, let it make me with the pearl soul of a wild thinghowling, let me be the moon burning, a body brimming, light beatingsoft in ribbons, light of the second flank of Earthbitinginto shambles of purple leaves, waiting at the edges of water, lightlessand lulling, summer dark humming and clicking, white flowers turnednight-blue I move to whistles and flitting wings, a curlew silhouetted by starsand dragged, snared between grey pebble teeth and smashed grassadjudicate this sickness like the rest, there is sickness in the restthe turning just to sleep, all peace and bones, while daylight is a violent deedan upright thingI roll back when the sky slits open, horizons bend to glassy bows: daybreaka silver storm of photons, forepaws former palms formfists, grasp husks of canines crushed like seashells, fur peelsmy eyes drown, earthbound, forever skinned in moonbeamsbalanced on sprigs, a bird sings in hoops of steam, beak wideas if to eat the sun.
Eyeshadow Palette
LICORICE
MARZIPAN
MEPHISTOPHELESPOND NYMPH
SORBET
SWALLOWED BIRDALOPECIA
PENNY MIXTURE
ARTEMESIAPILLOW TALK
MISTER SPOCK
RICH KID
VIPERBODYBAG
MONOLITH
NOSEJOB
CHUNDEREGGPLANT
CALORIE
GHOST TRAIN
HPV
CHOCOLATE CHIP
ANGEL WINGS
CRYSTAL
CUPID
CHOKESKIN-GRAFT
DRESSED IN THE DARK
PUBLICLY BETROTHEDPOSTAGE STAMP
THIRST-TRAP
BLOCKCHAIN
ROSE
'WRAPPERS' is an eerie and comical semi-autobiographical play currently in development. Featuring Brittle The Clown, the play investigates the relationships between grief, food, and rituals.
Shortlisted for 2024's David MacLennan Award (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), a short excerpt of 'WRAPPERS' was first performed as part of Summerhall Surgeries during Edinburgh Fringe, 2023. The play has been further supported in development by Stellar Quines with mentorship from Clare Duffy (Civic Digits), and with dramaturgical support from Matthew Short.
Feedback for 'WRAPPERS' at Summerhall:
"I enjoyed the quick shifts between poetic text and clownish moments. Excellent piece."
"The truth was captivating - great sense of place and time. There was universality (Channel 4, pot noodles) that made it easy to empathise."
"... an honest and stark depiction of that shame that gets instilled in us all. A gorgeous and brutal telling of what failure feels like spoken aloud."
"The writing is so good. The details are gorgeous - laughs to relate to and sometimes painful poetry!"
'Counterparts' is a short play in development, and an angry, unemployed comedy about class and belonging in the arts.
"Some cunt in the canteen, first day, points tae me and goes, “look at this one, twenty-four, nae car, nae hoose, nae bird… chin up, pal, at least you’ve got a shite job” and the other guys laugh and I laugh and we bond o’er it, the same way women bond, eh – because we fuckin’ hate oursels."
'Counterparts' featured as part of Under The Rug Theatre's third scratch night, Cuttin' A Rug 3, at The Old Hairdressers in Glasgow, and was performed by Kirsty-May Hamilton (Kate) and Rowan Heggie (Catherine), with dramaturgical support and direction by Jeffrey Wayne Park.
'MY ASEXUALITY IS' was first commissioned by and performed at the UK Asexuality Conference, 2019.A revised version was performed with The Queer Dot collective at Generator Projects, Dundee, in 2019, and Queer Chronicles, Kirkcaldy, in 2025.An excerpt of this piece featured in Yasmin Benoit's 2020 documentary for BBC Radio Berkshire, "Me and My Asexuality."
"There’s this word I said sitting opposite her, the therapist – I said it once, there was no occasion to use it again because it was nothing, it withered, invisible, in the dry air of her office, doesn’t it always? Asexual has this habit of dying blistered when it is perceived by someone else.And yet, asexual is unsinkable; unsinkable like a soft, amphibious creature living so far undetected somewhere in the rainforest, with a secret history of feeding and evolving and touching the rest of its ecosystem, asexual has molecules intimate with the cosmos. If you can’t find it, is it not there? A physics disorder, of disordered science."
'Home Body' is a short horror story, written for, produced and aired by the Persistent & Nasty podcast, and performed by Amelia Donkor.
"I would run and look behind me in the same way I switched quickly between films late at night on TV, switching over to avoid the Blair Witch or the girl who climbed out of the well. Flicking back and forth and dancing with the hope that I might catch a glimpse of something terrible."
Random Clown Generator (May 2023) was a participatory clown performance for Generator Project's Joy Parade; a playful invitation to explore the joy and magic of the clown itself.
Rory & Julie, 2022 and 2023
Rehearsed readings and development of new comedy written by Luis Alçada. Excerpt performed as part of Icebreaker Comedy Scratch Night, Dundee Fringe 2022. A later performance of the full script-in-hand reading took place at Dock Street Studios, Dundee, March 2023.
Hysteria, September 2022
Research and Development with Vivid Roots Collective. A week of collaborating, devising and writing in response to the theme of Hysteria and gender bias in medicine, with creative direction from Keira Smith.
"I wish this weight could wander
I wish it could roam
go to sleep
build a nest for itself
hibernate behind my lungs
or underground
I wish it could wander
I wish for teeth
but offered instead
lip fillers and hymen reconstruction surgery
packing peanuts
sawdust"
- text written in response to research themes and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
DROP THIS is a clown performance first created for Shaper/Caper's Fail Safe (June 2022) - an evening of short presentations celebrating failure, rejection, and being brave enough to give it a go.
Eviction Prom Queen (May 2022), a street performance and protest devised in conjunction with Living Rent, was comprised of artwork, character performance and occupation of the pavement outside a Dundee letting agency.
The performance resulted in the successful overturning of an eviction threat and necessary maintenance work being carried out for tenants across two local tenement buildings.
Songs for Work (Generator Projects, April 2022) was a collaborative project and gallery performance devised, written and performed with Beth Dynowski, Dan Cox, and Saoirse Amira Anis.
The Golden Ratio (2021) was devised and performed with Eve Thompson and Ashlyn Bourelle. This work was performed live online alongside pre-filmed sequences.
Congregation of The Innocent
Slides from a presentation performed live online; a kitch "seminar" featuring fictional cult representatives. 2021.
Suffer The Workers? coincided with Ceremony, an exhibition of work by Phil Collins exploring the legacy of Friedrich Engels, in collaboration with SCRIEVE, a playwrighting scratch night (Cooper Gallery, Dundee, 2019).
An introduction to improvisation and clowning, held at Generator Projects as part of their Summer School Programme (September 2022).
GO! Play, Improv and The Inner Child (September 2025)
This workshop, designed and delivered for Perth Creative Hub, explores states of personal and collaborative play, and what these states might offer us as artists.
Upcoming workshops for Dundee Play Festival, July 2026.
Workshop sessions researched, developed and delivered collaboratively for Dundee & Angus College Period Positive Programme.
A pastel picket fence celebrates the birth of the queer self. Two hearts meet where gender and body horror coexist in a spiral. A small felt monster speaks with it's teeth.Pieces of this collection featured in Dundee Contemporary Art's Echo event in 2018, corresponding with their Shonky exhibition.
The ACE RAGE collection reflects a journey towards re-making: re-making childhood, re-making gender, re-making mess. Embracing the unpolished, the joyful, the amateur, and the hand-made. This collection is for the queer folks who are hand-made, as we are frequently forced to uncover and shape parts of our identities that out families or communities try to conceal.In the work remains a sense of the obsessive and the meticulous - rows of sequins individually threaded, thin strips of plastic glued down one by one. But there are exposed seams and rough edges, glistening layers of peeling glitter glue like dried slime, plastic eyelashes and spilled wax. At it's heart ACE RAGE is passive-aggressive.
