playwriting.
As a playwright, Emma is inspired by the incredible women in her life. Her work is simultaneously intimate and adventurous, with a trademark sense of humour breaking through even the deepest sadness. After all,
“Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”
Robert Harling, Steel Magnolias
Rehearsal shot of Una Clancy and James Foster Jr. in Otis & Anna, by Emma Denson
OTIS & ANNA
One Act-Winner: Best Short at DUAF 2023
2023
When Otis, a talented NYC scenic designer, is diagnosed with dementia and subsequently dumped by his partner, Matthew, his world implodes. Anna, his former student, is also living in the city when she gets the news, and immediately moves in with Otis to help him cope. During the eight years that she serves as his carer, they develop their own language through a shared love of art, allowing them to communicate even as Otis is slowly robbed of his speech.
Click HERE to read the playbill for Otis & Anna.
ONLY THE GOOD
Full Length (In Development)
2O23
Seventeen years after her parents’ murder-suicide, Jamie is on the run. After escaping an evangelical rehab center, her maternal grandparents, who raised her, offer an ultimatum: return to the rehab center, or move in with her estranged paternal grandmother, Carole. In Only the Good, three Southern women battle the tradition of protecting one's image, even at the cost of family, and search to find a place for themselves, each other, and forgiveness in the midst of grief.
THE OPIOID PROJECT
Co-Written with Nathan Cleveland
2021
Click HERE to learn more about the PROMISE Initiative.
Logan never called him back.
When Logan left for college, he and his best friend, Michael, were not on good terms. They haven’t talked in ages when, out of nowhere, Logan gets a voicemail from Michael, asking him to talk. Shortly after, Michael dies of an opioid overdose, and his final voicemail haunts Logan like a voice beyond the grave. Determined to uncover what went wrong with the kid who seemed to have it all together, Logan sets out to make a podcast of the events leading up to Michael’s death. But when interviewing those who loved Michael most brings up feelings Logan thought were gone, he realizes he may have made a mistake.
Co-written with Nathan Cleveland, this play was commissioned by Mississippi State University’s PROMISE Initiative (Preventing Opioid Misuse in the Southeast) in 2019. Emma was chosen to lead the project, and she directed it as well as co-writing it. The project was recorded on Zoom and distributed to high schools across Mississippi.
FROST (TYA)
Co-Written with Luke Manual McFatrich
2018
The characters and story of this play are inspired by folklore, literature, legend, and music from Europe and Russia. There are also ideas from stories collected by the Brothers Grimm as well as from L. Frank Baum’s 1902 novel The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and 1901 short story “The Runaway Shadows, or A Trick of Jack Frost.” The play was produced by award-winning TYA company, The Basket Cases in 2018.
This play was the recipient of a Mississippi Arts Council grant and a Mississippi State University Entrepreneurship Grant.