I had done it. Had my first professional radio play produced by the ´óÏó´«Ã½!
In December 2010, Writersroom 10 was launched to support emerging theatre writers. Theatres across the UK were asked to nominate a writer. From these nominations we selected 10 writers to form a cohort who received a bursary, mentoring, workshops, masterclasses, and a showcase of original new plays at the - The Parade.
Five of these plays were then produced for on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3, and four were produced by as site-specific digital theatre for the ´óÏó´«Ã½/Arts Council online platform, .
The 2011/12 Writers
The Writersroom 10 scheme was launched in December 2010 as a new partnership programme for writers and theatres - marking the importance of theatre as the first home for many brilliant writers in the UK, and investing in writers and new theatre writing at an early stage.
The 10 winning writers and their partner theatres for 2011/12 were:
- West Yorkshire Playhouse - Dawn King
- Salisbury Playhouse - Kate Mitchell
- Live Theatre - Paul Charlton
- Bristol Old Vic - Penny Gunter
- Library Theatre - Rebecca Prestwich
- Lyric Theatre, Belfast - Seamus Collins
- Tamasha - Amman Brar
- Old Vic - Kenneth Emson
- Bush Theatre - Rachel De-Lahay
- Broadway, Barking - Jon O'Neill
The 2014/15 Writers
The Writersroom 10 scheme was relaunched in 2013 at the hosted by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Director General Tony Hall. The 10 winning writers were announced in April 2014:
Alice Birch - West Yorkshire Playhouse
Carol Vine - Brockley Jack
Ellie Stewart - Traverse Theatre
Frank McCabe – Greyscale
Matilda Ibini - Soho Theatre
Ian Townsend - Bolton Octagon
Joe White - Birmingham Rep
Lisa Jen Brown - National Theatre Wales
Mufaro Makubika - Nottingham Playhouse
Samuel E Taylor - Bristol Old Vic
The 10 writers joined a year-long development scheme and received a seed-commission of £1000, a ´óÏó´«Ã½ mentor to broaden their scriptwriting horizons and bring a fresh perspective to their work, the opportunity to develop new work for and a programme of partnership events with theatres.
The Writersroom 10 judges were acclaimed writers Tim Price (The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning), Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica, The Smoke), and Kate Rowland (´óÏó´«Ã½ Creative Director, New Writing).
The Writersroom 10 2015 culminated in a live read-through at the Birmingham Rep in June 2015. Following this 4 of the scripts were commissioned by .
The 4 commissioned scripts for 'The Verb' were:
- '' by Joe White
- '' by Ian Townsend
- '' by Lisa Jen Brown
- '' by Frank McCabe
The Parade: Site Specific Digital Theatre
The Parade was ´óÏó´«Ã½ Writersroom's collaboration with The Space and Slung Low theatre and explores the human stories behind Britain's troubled high streets.
Four of the writers from the 2011 Writersroom 10 scheme had their scripts produced as digital site specific theatre.
Watch the recordings below.
Somewhere Between a News Clipping and the Gossip Pages (These small tragedies)
by Kenny Emson
No More Pound Shop Wars
by Amman Paul Singh Brar
Can You Hear Me Baby
by Rebecca Prestwich
CSI Millionaire
by Katherine Mitchell
Find out more about Writersroom 10
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Live Theatre Showcase
Read Kenny Emson's blog -
2014 Winners
Find out more on the writers & theatres -
Kate Rowland on digital theatre on The Space
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With ´óÏó´«Ã½ DG Tony Hall
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