After a PhD at Lancaster University, Maggie taught at Milan University, where she held the chair of British Theatre Studies and Performance. She has published in the areas of British contemporary drama and theatre, Shakespeare in performance and women’s studies.

Since the mid 1990s she has worked in Scotland and in Italy, as a writer, dramaturg and workshop leader, with well-known practitioners: Andy Arnold (the Arches and Tron), Graham Eatough (Oran Mor and Traverse), Carrie Cracknell (Traverse and a UK tour), Liz Lochhead (Casa degli Alfieri). She is a member of the Scottish Society of Playwrights and Scotland’s Playwrights Studio. Several of her stage and radio plays, focusing on Italian migration to Scotland, such as the co-written Walking Through Stones and Six Month Here Six Months There, have been presented at the Edinburgh Fringe, The Gateway (Edinburgh) and Soho Theatre (London). Her work, exploring gardens and the environment in Shakespeare’s plays, includes the site-specific, Shakespeare in a Herb Garden, A Walk in Shakespeare’s Garden, Ophelia, Herb Woman (see
Youtube: Ofelia, donna delle erbe), the last two directed by Donatella Massimilla of CETEC (Centro europeo teatro e carcere). Plays about historic figures include: Tristano Martinelli. I’ll People this World with Harlequins and Shelley. A Diet for Peace. The last play was written for the 200 th celebrations of Shelley’s death in 1822 and has been performed in Lerici, Bologna and Milan. Her play New Caliban, produced by Christine Cooper and performed by Matteo Francesconi, is in development in Scotland, while Two Sisters, focusing on Judith and Susanna Shakespeare, will open at Tudor World, Stratford upon Avon, in June 2025.
She has led writing, performance and theatre translation workshops in major theatres, universities and prisons, such as the EU Lifelong Learning workshop, WWW.Venice. She co-led the three-year translation and performance workshop “Intercultural Dialogues”, with guest practitioners, Hanif Kureishi, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Rani Moorthy and Arne Pohlmeier, supported by British Council, Milan and Warwick Universities. She currently co-leads the Shakespeare Prison workshop at Milan’s “Cesare Beccaria” Juvenile Detention Centre. The team was recipient of a Creative Europe Award (2022-24), Typus (Transforming Young People Using Shakespeare). In 2017, with Alberto Madricardo, she set up the first citizens’ theatre workshop, curated by the association, P.E.R. Venezia Consapevole and has continued to support the group’s activities.