Polly Creed
Development Executive
Before joining the development team at the Lighthouse, Polly’s background was in theatre and documentary film. She is co-founder of Power Play Productions with Sophie Compton, a theatre and film company that specialises in telling women’s stories of injustice. Their recent work includes BFI-funded feature length documentary, Holloway (dir. Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson) which followed six women returning to the abandoned Holloway Prison to tell their stories. The film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, picking up the Audience Award for Best Documentary and was shown in competition at Hot Docs, Toronto, before going on to have a theatrical release in cinemas across the UK. It was winner of the Criminal Justice Alliance Award for Best Film 2025, nominated for the Maverick Award at the 2025 British Independent Film Awards, and has been longlisted for the Grierson Award for Best Cinema Documentary 2026. The film has also been shown at the Houses of Parliament, and Royal Courts of Justice. Polly was long-listed as BIFA Breakthrough Producer 2025.
Through Power Play, Polly has also produced a number of theatrical plays including Funeral Flowers by Emma Dennis-Edwards (Scotsman Fringe First Award, Filipa Braganca Award), Somebody by Matilda Curtis, and Next Time by Jess Moore. Power Play has also run several impact campaigns and produced installations at the Tate Modern, V&A and Copeland Gallery. In 2021, the company was shortlisted for the Deutsche Bank award for creative entrepreneurship.
Alongside her producing work, Polly has worked as a writer and theatre director. Her play Humane was performed at the Pleasance Theatre and published by Aurora Metro. In 2022, Polly directed The Straw Chair by Sue Glover (Finborough Theatre), and Pussycat in Memory of Darkness by Ukrainian writer Neda Nezhdana, translated by John Farndon (Finborough Theatre), which in 2023 toured to the USA, Germany, and Ukraine - the first international theatre production to tour to Ukraine since the start of the war.
