Connor Allen was Children’s Laureate Wales 2021-2023. Connor is a poet and multidisciplinary artist from Newport. Since graduating from Trinity Saint David as an Actor in 2013, Connor has worked with companies such as Taking Flight Theatre, Sherman Theatre, Royal Exchange Manchester, Tin Shed Theatre, BBC Wales and National Theatre Wales. He is a member of National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and was also the winner of Triforces Cardiff MonologueSlam, representing Wales at the London winners edition. Connor’s work is heavily inspired by elements of his own life such as grief, love, masculinity, identity, and ethnicity.
He has written for BBC Wales, Sherman Theatre, BBC Radio 4 and Dirty Protest, and received Arts Council of Wales funding for the production of his debut play Working Not Begging – a one woman play about homelessness and grief. Most recently, he was shortlisted for Triforce’s Dave & UKTV Writerslam 2021, won the Literature Wales and Firefly Press Rising Star Wales Award 2021 and was a Jerwood Live Work Fund recipient in 2021. He is currently working on his one man autobiographical show, a poetry collection and a theatre adaptation.
Connor’s priority as Children’s Laureate Wales was to empower children and young people to tell their own unique stories through poetry.
