#  Stella Feehily 

Playwright, Screenwriter, and Actor

 

 

 



   ![Stella Freehily sits looking left. She has sholder-length auburn hair and a soft smile.](/sites/g/files/omnuum1806/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2024-09/Stella%20Feehily%20%281%29.jpg?itok=AObQ3PV_) 

 



 





 

**Stella Feehily** is the playwright of [Hampstead Theatre’s](https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/) current production, [*The Lightest Element*](https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2024/the-lightest-element/) (Sept. 5, 2024-Oct. 12, 2024). This biographical play about the life and career of Dr. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is centered around 1958, when she was appointed the Phillips Professor of Astronomy and became the first female chair of a department at Harvard. The play extends and reaches back from this time to create a portrait of one woman whose brilliance and determination allowed her to transgress the patriarchal structures of Harvard and McCarthy-Era America. Feehily's previous plays often explore social and political interests, where the untold stories of female identity frequently lie.

**Stella Feehily** is a playwright and screenwriter. [*Duck*](https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990092322150203941/catalog), Stella’s first full-length play premiered in an Out of Joint and Royal Court co-production at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, before playing at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, the Royal Court Theatre and The Peacock Theatre, Dublin. Since then she has written [*O Go My Man*](https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990098799780203941/catalog) ([Royal Court Theatre](https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/o-go-my-man-2/)) [*Catch*](https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/catch-2/) (written with four other female playwrights) at the Royal Court, [*Dreams of Violence*](https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990120594940203941/catalog) (Soho Theatre), [*Bang, Bang, Bang*](https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990129835640203941/catalog) (Royal Court) and [*This May Hurt a Bit*](https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990140145740203941/catalog) (a play about the National Health Service), which toured nationally before opening at the St James Theatre, London. Other works include *How To Get Ahead In Politics - Arts Theatre,* and adaptations of *Love And A Bottle* for LAMDA's long project, *Coppélia* for Ballet Ireland and Claudio Tolcachir’s *The Omission of* *the Family Coleman,* performed at the Theatre Royal Bath in March 2019. For Irish National Opera she wrote the libretto for *Close,* a short opera composed by Hannah Peel.

Radio plays include *Sweet Bitter* for Lyric FM, *Julia Roberts’ Teeth* for Radio 3 and *All of These Things* for International Arts Partnership.

Television includes developments with BBC3, Blue Ink, Expectation and FilmNation. She is developing a film with Picture Locked Pics about surfing set in 1980s Ireland.



 

 

 





 

 

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