Scottish women playwrights against zero visibility : new voices breaking through

Abstract

Horvat was invited to contribute an article on the writing of Scottish women playwrights for the 2005 issue called La Reputation of the double-peer reviewed journal Etudes Ecossaises based at University Stendhal-Grenoble. This resulted in a written piece that analyses the work of several generations of Scottish women writers, with a particular focus on the work done in the last decade of the twentieth century and in the first four years of the twenty-first century. While drawing from her earlier research into writing of the women playwrights in the 1980s and early 1990s, Horvat introduces into the mix several new names, some of whom have not been analysed as of yet, in order to give a comprehensive account of themes and preoccupations (with a focus on the issues of gender and empowerment) in the work of this new generation of writers, as well as challenges that they face with regard to production of their plays on the Scottish stage. The aim of this research project is to provide detailed historical/analytical account of the work of this new generation of women playwrights in Scotland, and to document the critical reception of this work on the contemporary Scottish stage. Another aim of this research project is to present this information in a style that is informative to both researchers and non-researchers, and accessible to general readership.