Morna Young on Margaritas, Mortality, and ‘After Party’

In 2018, playwright Morna Young travelled to Oregon to attend an assisted death. She expected tragedy. Instead, she encountered joy.

This disorienting experience sits at the core of After Party, her latest work premiering at the Traverse. Young lost her father at sea during childhood. Grief is familiar territory. Yet a planned, celebrated death upended her expectations. There is no established etiquette for a living funeral complete with margaritas and cake.

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She spent years processing the event. The result is a fictional story following a family forced to confront difficult truths in an alternative present where assisted dying is legal. Rather than a grim meditation on mortality, After Party focuses on the messy, comical business of living. I stopped by to review it at the beginning of this year’s Fringe, finding it, “…tapped into a rich British tradition of dark-edged domestic comedy.“

To learn more about the genesis of After Party, dive into this extensive Q&A with the author:

What first sparked the idea behind the play? In 2018, Alex Fthenakis and I attended an assisted death in Oregon. I didn’t know what to expect beforehand but, afterwards, I felt profoundly changed in a way I couldn’t quite articulate. Whilst grief is all too familiar to me, this loss felt different. One rogue emotion seemed particularly astonishing – joy.

This play is a fictional story but the first seeds were undoubtedly sown in this moment; and perhaps even more so in the aftermath where I found myself struggling to describe the experience. I wanted to reach for the word ‘fun’ but always felt hesitant to do so. How could the tragedy of death possibly be described in such a trivial way? Alex and I quietly discussed the unintentional hilarity of a life-event that is so rare and unexpected that there is no established ‘norm’. What does one wear to a life party that is part celebration, part living funeral, a strange hybrid of the familiar and unknown? I found myself questioning and unpicking and reflecting… and, as always, that’s when I find myself turning to writing, longing for character and story to help me unravel complexities. Still, I didn’t write this play for many years, unsure of how to tell it.

After receiving Creative Scotland funding to help develop the idea, my biggest realisation came when I realised that I wasn’t trying to write a play about death – it was a play about life. From that point, After Party became the play it is today.

What interested you in exploring how families negotiate difficult truths? I’ve always wanted to write a big, bold family play, inspired by gorgeous classics like August Osage County. My own dad was lost at sea when I was a child and growing up with that absence opened up a lot of questions for me about family structures. I would often watch those Christmas films with the ‘perfect’ family and feel deep longing for that sort of chocolate box world; perhaps that’s now why I so often write the opposite, families that are stuck in dysfunction, unable to communicate or fixed in the familial myths and narratives we so often create for ourselves.

I’ve written often about families, but perhaps never as specifically as this. I’m interested, always, in the ways that we navigate our relationships and, as explored in After Party, our responsibility to those we are related to. You can choose your friends, right? Love is so very complicated and I have a longing to interrogate the ways in which we are often cruellest to those we are closest to.

The play touches on autonomy and choice in a context that is live, politically and ethically. Were you consciously stepping into that public conversation? Yes and no. This play had been in my mind since 2018 and, prior to then, assisted death hadn’t particularly been on my radar beyond a basic understanding of the 2015 bill, proposed by Margo MacDonald MSP, that was voted down. The most recent tabling of the Assisted Death for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, introduced by Liam McArthur MSP, was coincidental in its timing but offered a fantastically rich landscape for research. Ethics has always been a personal interest, connected to my journalism training, and I found myself becoming immersed in researching the political landscape in addition to the history and international laws.

This deep research has also been part of my playwriting process but, ultimately, I’m a storyteller and my aim is always to use learning to inform the background of my writing whilst freeing myself up to write a fictional story rooted in character. With journalism, my research led to fact based articles; but now, I use my learning as a foundation to inform fictional worlds.

I was always clear, from the initial seeds of writing this play, that I wanted it to be set in a world where Assisted Death was newly legalised; an alternative present, I suppose. My initial script note reads: “Is this Scotland? If so, it’s a Scotland that doesn’t exist yet”. In the end, this isn’t even really a play about assisted death, per se – it’s about a family grappling to find a way of understanding each other in life and death circumstances.

Scottish audiences are often very responsive to gallows humour – does knowing that it premieres at the Traverse shape your writing? In the case of After Party, the play came first and then the venue but, yes, the humour definitely spoke to the Traverse. It’s a play rooted in comedy, and I use that humour to explore some dark and difficult circumstances.

As someone who has had a lot of tragedy in my past, the idea “if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry” was instilled in me from a young age. My Auntie Stella has the most wicked sense of humour, she honestly makes me howl, and I believe we all need that sort of release, even in the darkest of times. Comedy has helped me process so much, offering a chance to look at life sideways, embracing both light and shade. I would collapse under the weight of the world if I didn’t find a way to laugh.

I quite often joke (though perhaps it’s humour rooted in truth?), that I love writing dialogue because I get to redraft it; so I can have the same conversation in multiple different ways, and be little funnier and sharper than I am on first response.

Vivienne Blackwood sounds like a formidable central character. What makes a great older female protagonist on stage? A great older female protagonist is like all great protagonists – complex, with wants, desires, flaws, and something to gain. Many of my plays have featured older female characters (Aye, Elvis, The Silver Superheroes, The Stamping Ground, The Snow Queen, Lost at Sea…) and I don’t think that was ever a conscious decision but, looking back, my own life lens must have informed that. I miss my (deceased) grandparents dearly and, growing up in a small village, I was always surrounded by incredible older people with wonderful stories. When I wrote ‘Lost at Sea’, I spent a lot of time with the retired fishermen, listening to stories, and it was an absolute privilege. Older voices deserve the main stage as much as anyone; not least because we have an incredible array of older actors in Scotland. The talent is unbelievable. Working with both Alison Peebles and Benny Young in this show truly feels like being in the presence of Scottish theatre royalty. They’re phenomenal.

I always know I have a fantastic protagonist to work with when their voice demands to be heard and Vivienne certainly had something to say. I loved getting to know her, capturing her bite and understanding her many complexities. I’ve always really cared about my characters but Viv, in particular, holds a really special place in my heart.

Did you have any particular performers or theatrical traditions in mind when imagining Vivienne? Characters always grow in the most unexpected ways, and I think part of Viv’s creation is rooted in a deeply personal moment when I realised I would soon be the same age that my dad was when he was lost. Suddenly, I found myself questioning everything in my life – the choices I’ve made, the things I have or haven’t done and, specific to After Party, the theatre career I’ve dedicated much of my life to. I found myself really interrogating the longing I have for live connection with an audience, the desire to sit in deep emotions and the character conflicts I spend so much time wrestling with.

There are many threads that weave together to make a play, but my writing does often reflect where I’m at in life, and this theme of “what does it mean to live?” really set this story in motion.

At what point did you know you had found the heart of the story? The moment I realised that this wasn’t a play about death; but a play about life. That and the moment I really heard Viv’s voice bossing me around. Alex and I had been discussing this idea for a long time, so it was beautiful to finally feel like I could see and feel the story.

Our director, the incredible Katie Posner, is one of the first people who read the script and her response was gloriously encouraging. She’s been with the play since the first draft and our early development, and that feels really special. Throughout the drafts, she’s really helped me to hold that heart.

Did the script change significantly during development?

The heart of the story remained the same but I was able to interrogate each character and storyline in more detail alongside Katie, and to begin distilling and focusing the narrative. With a cast of nine characters, it’s a lot to hold and welcoming actors into that process was, as always, a brilliant chance to see the work through new eyes. Actors are phenomenal, they really are, and I find that they always discover and raise the most interesting and complex questions; and usually at least one of those questions unravels half of what you’ve written… but is completely necessary and brilliant.

How does your journalistic background influence your writing? Journalism has given me a strong need for due diligence. Even if I’m writing something entirely fictional, I have to really immerse myself in understanding the subject. I’m fortunate that my journalism training armed me with strong research skills, and I tend to become completely fascinated and utterly engrossed by whatever subject I’m researching.

You’ve had a long relationship with the Traverse – what has it meant to your development as an artist? The Traverse is our only theatre in Scotland dedicated to the development of new writing, and it has been a joy to develop my relationship with the team over the years. This includes participating in a residency in Japan in 2019, remounting ‘Aye, Elvis’ in 2021, and being a resident associate and developing new work as part of the Peggy Ramsay / Film 4 award in 2024, in addition to hosting workshops as part of Class Act and beyond. This ‘beyond’ bit is important because it’s the part that we can’t always define – but it’s rooted in an organisation encouraging and engaging with an artist, and the Traverse have been incredible in their support of my ambition and career.

Staging a play at the Traverse during the festival has always been on my dream list so I’m really overjoyed and, as always, pinching myself. Working in theatre is tough, and I’ve never taken this life for granted; in fact, I have a tendency to presume that every play will be my last. So I try to celebrate those moments, especially the ones that would absolutely blow my younger self’s mind apart. A Traverse 1 play during the festival? Wee Morna would never have believed it.

What excites you most about Scottish theatre at the moment? This year’s Traverse festival programme! It feels bold and risky and it’s a joy to be a part of. I’m genuinely still amazed that we’re staging a full length play with nine actors at the festival. It feels like such a daring move.

Scottish theatre has been in an incredibly precarious financial situation since the pandemic, and that has left a number of artists struggling and being forced to leave the industry – I particularly worry about losing working class voices. What excites me are conversations rooted in hope; in the dreams of Scottish artists who want a more secure industry, who call for equality and inclusion, and who keep imagining a better world despite all the tough times.

All new writing is a risk and the programming of new work has taken a severe downturn. Scotland’s international success is built on new writing, and I truly hope that we’re able to keep finding ways to support all artists across all career stages.

This year’s Traverse programme places a strong emphasis on women’s voices. Does that feel significant? Hugely so. In 2026, it doesn’t feel like this should be significant – but it is. In fact, I can’t really remember seeing a season announcement quite like this. In recent years, I’ve felt a bit despondent seeing seasons of male writers announced and wondering: why? In a world dominated by male power, it feels more vital than ever for our sector to embrace equality and inclusion.

Standing on stage with Eilidh Loan and Zinnie Harris at the TravFest announcement felt so incredibly special, and I feel beyond privileged to be part of a trio with two writers who I admire. It’s also a great privilege to be working with powerhouse women like the Traverse’s Chief Executive Linda Crooks and Paine’s Plough’s Artistic Director, Katie Posner, both of whom have been so passionate about bringing After Party to the stage.

How does it feel having your work on at the Belgrade/do you have any personal connection? I’ve never been to Coventry before so I’m very excited to explore. The majority of my career so far has been rooted in Scotland so it’s wonderful to be working with the Belgrade as part of After Party’s creation and journey.

Featured Image: Morna Young provided by PR

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