“Wicked Women: Crafting Complex Female Villains”, with Karen Cecilia is a dynamic playwriting workshop that dives deep into the art of creating multidimensional female antagonists and anti-heroes. This workshop is designed for writers ready to break past stereotypes and bring to life women who are bold, morally ambiguous, and utterly compelling.
We'll explore:
- The psychology behind villainy and how it shifts through a gendered lens
- Historical and modern tropes of female evil—and how to subvert them
- Character-building tools to develop villains with agency, complexity, and emotional depth
- How to make audiences root for (or fear) your anti-heroine
Through writing exercises, guided discussion, and case studies from theatre, participants will leave with sharper tools and new inspiration to push their characters—and their scripts—into daring new territory.
Whether you're writing your next femme fatale, political schemer, tragic misfit, or chaotic disruptor, this workshop will help you give her the nuance she deserves.
Karen Cecilia is an internationally recognised playwright and thereminist.
Highlights from her playwriting work include: Timestamp (The Tank, NYC production) Perfectly Normal (Finalist: Coalescence Theatre Collective. Semi-finalist: Orlando Shakespeare Theatre Festival and Athens Project Colorado. Staged at La Mama Theater NYC). Ivy Walls (Finalist: Ivoryton Playwrights’ Initiative and Theatre Odyssey Play Fest). Through The Cracks (Acclaimed production including: Here Arts Center, NYC). The Bystander (Shortlist honours at London Playwrights). Her work is published in: THE BEST WOMEN’S STAGE MONOLOGUES 2023 -- WOMEN, Smith & Kraus and 100 MONOLOGUES FROM NEW PLAYS 2020 -- WOMEN, Limelight Editions. RECIPES AND REJECTION, KDP Publishing.
As a thereminist her work has been seen in Falling Sideways Off The Edge Of The Earth (actor and thereminist), Composite (short film). Additionally, She is a screenwriter.
Karen is a member of The Scottish Society of Playwrights, The Dramatists Guild of America, The Actors Studio Playwrights/Directors Workshop, and The London Playwrights. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from The Actors Studio Drama School in NYC. Karen is a writing professor and gives creative writing workshops all over the world which include, The Glasgow Women’s Library. Learn more about her at www.karencecilia.com
[This workshop has kindly been donated to London Playwrights by Karen Cecilia].
