Abby Howells is an award winning comedian and writer. She was last seen at the Fortune Theatre in 2010’s production of Red Riding Hood as well as performing with improv troop, Improsaurus. Abby was a founding member of female comedy collective Discharge and has written and performed in five shows, including the musical 28 Days: A Period Piece and Benedict Cumberbatch Must Die. Benedict went on to have successful seasons in Wellington, Dunedin and Auckland and in 2014 won the Highly Commended Award in Playmarket’s B425 Competition.
In 2014 Abby completed an MA in Scriptwriting at Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters and won the Brad McGann Award for Film Writing for the screenplay she produced that year. While in Wellington Abby performed in two shows as part of the Wellington International Comedy Festival, Definitely Not The Babysitters Club and her one woman show Glocknid: Dwarf Warrior, for which she won the award for Best Newcomer.
Most recently, Abby has been touring New Zealand and the UK performing with Trick of the Light Theatre and their show Beards! Beards! Beards! This has included seasons at Circa Theatre in Wellington, Arts Festivals in Nelson, Hawkes Bay and Salisbury and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Her next play Attila the Hun will be performed at BATS Theatre in Wellington as part of the 2017 Young and Hungry Festival. Abby is delighted to be back in Dunedin, where she is currently working on a PhD at Otago University’s Theatre Studies Department.