Rosemary Harris

Rosemary Harris is a writer, director, performer, producer and facilitator. She is a NIDA Acting graduate (National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney) and an MA (Distinction) in Creative and Life Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London.

Rosemary has worked with an exhaustive list of leading creative organisations across the UK and in Australia, including the BBC Proms, Royal Society of Literature, the Poetry Society, V&A Museum of Childhood, Southbank Centre, and on several award-winning spoken word and theatre shows. She has created projects, conducted workshops and facilitated creative production in just about every setting possible, from theatres to schools, day centres to prisons, museums to festivals, with children and adults, creative professionals and absolute beginners, and often involving music.

Rosemary directed, produced and co-wrote the Suitcase Trilogy of spoken word shows for young people, including A Roo In My Suitcase, One Way Ticket, and Map of Me, which toured the UK with Half Moon Theatre and Apples and Snakes, funded by Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England. Her show Boys Don’t explored issues of boys’ emotional expression and the impact of gender roles on mental distress. After premiering at Half Moon Theatre, Boys Don’t toured the UK, including live-streaming from Brighton Festival, and was a finalist in the 2018 Off West End Theatre Awards, for Best Production for Young People.

In 2021 Rosemary was part of the creative team for Narratives of Empathy and Resilience, working with a collective of artists from a range of disciplines, who collaborated to create nine powerful scratch performances for different age ranges for the Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) sector. Rosemary was Project Dramaturge (Spoken Word) and Dramaturgical Trainer on Boys Will Be Boys, Daytime Deewane, Flat Lands, and Hot Orange. 

Her work has been widely published, including Poetry London, Index on Censorship, Magma, Staple, Chroma, and various anthologies. A former member of the Sydney Theatre Company, Rosemary has performed at Sydney Opera House, New York’s Summerfare Festival, and her UK performances include the Southbank Centre, Bristol Poetry Festival, Soho Writers’ Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Radio 3’s The Verb, and the Australia and NZ Festival of Arts and Literature.

Rosemary has recently been developing, writing and piloting new creative resources with Scottish Book Trust’s flagship Bookbugs programme.