Who is the Artistic Director of Hearth?

Polly Wright is a theatre director, occasional performer, facilitator, writer, lecturer, and researcher. She studied at Birmingham university and the Welsh college of Music and Drama  and after a short career as a professional actress, she co-founded Women and Theatre in Birmingham, where she co-wrote and performed cabaret sketches and plays. Since leaving the company and setting up Hearth she has been the sole playwright of 8 plays, all of which have been professionally produced for Hearth. Hearth has been recognized for the excellence of its work, when it was short listed for a Mind Media Award in 2008 following a tour of Northern Ireland, and Polly was short listed as a mental health hero herself in 2010. 

She has loved literature all her life and connects it very strongly with her own well being.  She has also published 7 short stories and some poetry with Tindal Street Press, and was short listed for the Birmingham Poet Laureate.

In 2007 the Hearth Centre was granted contracts to develop Reading for Well Being in secure and community for mental health settings in Birmingham. Since 2007 she has developed the shared reading approach widely and lectures on it internationally.

Polly has taught in secondary schools and adult and higher education. She has previously been a part time lecturer in Clinical Communication Studies and Literature and Drama in Medicine at Birmingham University. She has an Msc in Health Promotion and was commissioned by health agencies to write many studies in which drama was used as a method of social research into service provision and health perceptions. She published articles on the approach and is on the editorial board of the Arts and Health journal, Policy and Practice

Polly’s work has been short listed for the following awards:

The MIND Media Award in 2007 for tour of Northern Ireland of Revolving Door

The Depression Alliance Award 2012

The Arts in Public Health Award in 2012 awarded by the RSPH