Azuka Oforka

Playwright and screenwriter based in Wales. Azuka won Best Writer at The Stage Debut Awards 2024 for her play ‘THE WOMEN OF LLANRUMNEY’, which opened at The Sherman Theatre in May 2024 to fantastic reviews, including 5 stars in The Guardian. The play is set in colonial Jamaica and explores Welsh links to slavery. It has been published by Nick Hern Books. The Women of Llanrumney has also been confirmed for a run at Stratford East Theatre in Spring 2025.

Azuka was a participant in the inaugural ‘Jed Mercurio Mentorship Programme’, where she was mentored by writer and showrunner Emma Frost. On the scheme she developed an original historical TV drama pilot called ‘LUCY NEGRO’, which is an ill-fated love story set in turbulent Elizabethan England. It’s inspired by the controversial theory pertaining to Shakespeare’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Azuka was also a participant on the BBC Writersroom Welsh Voices scheme in 2022, and is currently on the ScreenSkills Regional Breakthrough Writers programme, where she’s developing an original drama with ITV’s 5 Act Productions.

Azuka is passionate about telling stories that centre flawed, complex women and shine a light on underrepresented, marginalised communities in both historical and contemporary settings.