Natalie is a Playwright, Poet, occasional Performer, Song Lyricist, Dramaturg, Producer of Arts and Heritage Projects. Including; Co-Director of Dreadnought South West  who produce Occupy the Airwaves and the Rebellious Sounds Archive. She was also a Co-Director of Out and About Queering the Museum at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery.

Most recently Natalie was Contributing Writer and Dramaturg for Dundee based Shaper/Caper’s show Small Town Boys  which will tour across Scotland in 2024. Funded by Creative Scotland. Her play The Peace was on the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting and Blessed was long listed for the RSC’s 37 Plays in 2023.

In 2022 Natalie was awarded Self-Led Project Funding support by Playwrights’ Studio Scotland to research and develop the beginnings of a new play; Cusp. In collaboration with the Lesbian Archive collection at Glasgow Women’s Library, and with Writer, Director and Dramaturg Clare Duffy, the foundations of this new play were explored.

The Beat of Our Hearts was a commission with the University of Exeter’s Wellcome Centre for the Cultures and Environments of Health (WCCEH), in partnership with Exeter Northcott Theatre and the Intercom Trust. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in 2021/2.  The play was produced in 2022 at Exeter Northcott Theatre and directed by Scott Hurran. The play is inspired by LGBTQIA+ people from across the South West exploring loneliness and belonging. The project was led by Dr Charlotte Jones. Find out more here.

It is also streaming here Playtext is published by Salamander Street.

We’ll Meet In Moscow a new digital audio drama. A Traverse Theatre Company production was on demand as part of the Traverse Theatre’s Summer Festival 2021 from 10th – 31st August 2021. More info here It was directed by Shilpa T-Hyland and performed by Maggie Bain.

Writer In Residence at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) as part of a partnership with the University of Exeter led by Professor Jana Funke called: Out and About: Queering the Museum. Natalie is writing a poetic queer reimagining of RAMM’s public collections as well as being the project’s Cultural Heritage Producer.  It is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the University of Exeter.

All the Things We Grieve is an Exeter City of Literature Compact Commission and can be watched here

Exodus will be published as part of a collection of writings about Dartmoor by Slate Publishing. Natalie’s first play Metal Remains, written for and produced by Theatre West in Bristol, was shortlisted for the Meyer Whitworth Prize.  Her next full length play, Coasting, was developed, commissioned and produced by Bristol Old Vic. Her short play Scottish Kiss was for Paines Plough’s Come to Where I’m From, Wild Doves was for Bristol Old Vic’s Short Fuses season. Rift; produced by the Brewhouse Theatre Taunton was awarded the Inspire mark as part of the Cultural Olympiad 2012. Exodus was part of Box of Tricks Word: Play/NWxSW tour.  Oxygen for Dreadnought South West toured along the route of the Great 1913 Women’s Suffrage Pilgrimage from Land’s End to Hyde Park, premiering at St Just Town Hall, whilst also touring to Theatre Royal Plymouth, Rougemont Gardens in Exeter, Teignmouth, Yelde Hall Chippenham, The Orange Tree in Richmond. Natalie’s next play for Dreadnought South West was The Cause, which toured across the South West in 2018. It was part of Arts Council England’s Strategic Touring Programme and is published by Methuen & Co.

Collaborations include; Etch for Exim Dance, This City’s Centre for Blind Ditch. Electric Spaces, for In Other Words, where she was also project lead. Natalie’s writing career was ignited by participating in the Hall for Cornwall’s Responses Project in 2006/07.  Her work centre stages women and LGBTQIA+ characters and voices.  

In 2018 and 2019 she was awarded Arts Council England South West Project Grants funding to develop RnD projects on The Sound, a new play about young queer lives in Plymouth. This project also supported on a wider level young queer artists in the South West and has led to the first Rainbow Trail at RAMM.  Development work took place at Theatre Royal, Plymouth. Blessed was developed and supported by the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh as part of their Open Submissions programme 2019, and was part of the First Stages Festival in November 2019.

Readings of Natalie’s work have taken place at the Traverse Theatre, Exeter Northcott, Theatre 503, Soho Theatre, Bristol Old Vic as part of their ongoing Bristol Ferment platforms, Hall for Cornwall, Theatre Royal, Plymouth, Exeter Phoenix, Exeter Bikeshed Theatre to name a few!

“There’s no mistaking the distinctive timbre of McGrath’s work.” – Lyn Gardner

 “beautiful and uplifting” – On Oxygen The Stage