Kimberly Belflower is a Tony-nominated playwright and educator from a two-stoplight town in rural Georgia, Appalachia.

I don’t think I’m alone in admitting that I have a mild obsession with Appalachia. Between the landscape, the legends, the people, and the region’s deep culture of storytelling, it has long been a hotbed for creativity. Great Appalachian writers include Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver, novelist Lee Smith, and poet Nikki Giovanni. The commonality in their work is generosity, intelligence, and an almost elemental force, exploring the region’s history, its communities, and its complicated relationship with industry.

Our guest today, Kimberly Belflower, emerges from that same rich tradition of storytelling.

Her plays include Lost Girl, Saint Pigtail, and John Proctor Is the Villain. Her work is known for its distinctive tonal balance of hilarity and gravitas, grappling with questions of gender, power, and change. She writes with remarkable attention to the interior lives of women and the social ecosystems that shape them, bringing great intelligence and emotional complexity to the stage...

It strikes me that the working life of playwright and actor Luke Norris may be built on two foundation stones.

I have long been taken by the idea that the county of Essex is a perfect breeding ground for writers and for playwrights in particular. The county that gave us Kenny Emson and Rebecca Prichard, David Eldridge and Sarah Kane is striking for the diversity of its economic and social geography. All kind of people come from and move through Essex. Romford, the Havering town that Norris was born in is the quintessence of the county. A market town for eight hundred years it brings together, in its cauldron of booze and nights out and transport routes and good shopping, exactly that clash and diversity and contradiction that energises a writers imagination.

This podcast was produced with support from the original Playwrights Podcast team Simon Stephens and Anoushka Warden.