Winner of a Fringe First Award 2024

What use is paper? To speak.
To imagine. To remember.

It starts when she puts a note through his letterbox.

'Hello Number 4, this is Number 6. Please could you SHUT THE **** UP? Ta.' Not a promising beginning, but... they meet, they fall in love, they get married.

Then one day a letter arrives that will change them, and the world, forever...

Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Williams's A History of Paper is a musical love story about a man and a woman and the little bits of paper that make up a life.

This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere Dundee Rep and Traverse Theatre co-production at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre in August 2024.

Oliver Emanuel (1980-2023) was an award-winning playwright based on the west coast of Scotland. He wrote over 30 plays for both stage and radio. Theatre included: The 306: Trilogy - Dawn, Day & Dusk; Dragon and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (National Theatre of Scotland); The Monstrous Heart, Traverse; Flight, Vox Motus; Titus, Red Bridge Arts; Prom, Oran Mor/Traverse/Lemon Tree. Radio included: When The Pips Stop, The Truth About Hawaii, A History of Paper, Emile Zola: Blood Sex & Money, BBC Radio 4. Awards included: Tinniswood Award 2019; Best Series at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2019; Herald Angel 2017; Best Adaptation at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016; The People's Choice Victor Award at IPAY 2015; Best Show for Children at the UK Theatre Awards in 2014. Oliver founded the MLitt in Playwriting & Screenwriting at the University of St Andrews with Zinnie Harris.

Gareth Williams is a composer and songwriter and is Chancellor's Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art. His compositions seek to find new relationships, participants, collaborators and audiences for new opera, music theatre, and song, to shed light on stories and communities that have been overlooked, and to explore ideas of vulnerability in vocal writing. He creates award winning music for companies and organisations such as Scottish Opera, Tapestry Opera, National Theatre of Scotland, Red Note Ensemble, Hebrides Ensemble, Bridge Theatre, Ulster Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Music Scotland. From 2015 - 2018 Williams collaborated with playwright Oliver Emanuel to create The 306 Trilogy. The pair again collaborated on their musical A History of Paper.