Ralph McCubbin Howell is a theatre maker from Wellington who grew up in Waikari, Te Waipounamu. He completed a BA (Hons) in Theatre & English at Victoria University of Wellington, and was awarded the Dronke Prize for Drama, before going on to train at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in the UK, and receiving a Masters in Scriptwriting from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters.
He is co-director of Trick of the Light Theatre, for which his accolades as a writer include Outstanding New Playwright for The Engine Room – Wellington Theatre Awards 2011, Outstanding New NZ Play and Production of the Year for The Road That Wasn’t There – Wellington Theatre Awards 2013. He co-created the story for The Griegol with Hannah Smith, a show without words which received Production of the Year at the Wellington Theatre Awards in 2022. Outside of Trick of the Light, his play Second Afterlife premiered as part of the Young and Hungry Festival of New Theatre in Wellington in 2014.
In 2014 he received the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, and in 2024 co-authored The Green Theatre Touring Guide – a guidebook and website for artists touring in and from Aotearoa.