Abby Howells is an award winning comedian and writer. She was a founding member of female comedy collective Discharge and served as their Head Writer. She has written and performed in five shows for the collective, 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. During the course of her studies, Abby had her audio play The Crash produced by Radio New Zealand, as part of their New Shorts Competition. Her ten minute play Crossbow Cat has been performed in Short and Sweet Festivals in Malaysia, the Philippines, Brisbane and Auckland. Crossbow Cat won both People’s and Judges Choice in the Auckland Festival. While in Wellington Abby wrote and performed her one woman show Glocknid: Dwarf Warrior, for which she won the award for Best Newcomer at the Wellington International Comedy Festival.
In 2016 Abby toured 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. In 2017 her play Attila the Hun was performed as part of the Young and Hungry Festival.