September 2012

1st September

Sterts Theatre One Act Playwriting competition

The competition is open to anyone over 18 years and entries must be original plays not previously
published or publicly performed.
The play should be for a maximum of four characters and suitable for a studio space but there is no theme
or restriction on location. Running-time should not exceed thirty minutes.
Entries must be in English, typed, on A4 and you can send as many as you like but please note that they
will not be returned, so keep a copy. The author’s name must not appear on the manuscript but the title
must be included on every page.
Entry forms may be downloaded from www.sterts.co.uk or requested by sending a stamped SAE to Sterts
Theatre, Upton Cross, Liskeard, Cornwall, PL14 5AZ. Entries should be posted, together with the entry
form, to the same address and cheques should be made payable to Sterts.
The prize for the winning entry will be £100 and a performance of the play on the evening of the 17th November, 2012. Two runners-up will receive £25 each and there will be a rehearsed reading of each play on the same evening. Sterts Theatre reserves the right to stage any or all of the winning plays, without further payment, within one calendar year of the closing date.
http://www.sterts.co.uk/article.php?category_id=1&article_id=74

1st September

ACT Playwriting Competition 2012-2013

Once again we are happy to announce the launch of this year’s very popular playwriting competition for school students in years 12 and 13.

The reason the ACT Theatre runs this competition every year is that we wish to encourage young writers to create new works for live theatre, and the response from our local school students never fails to impress.

First Prize – £500 and a guaranteed performance of the winning play

Second Prize – £250, and up to three further prizes each of £100.

http://www.kingston-college.ac.uk/content/1/308/act-playwriting-competition-2012-2013.html

1st September

The Trinity College Int. Playwriting Competition 2012

Trinity College London encourages creativity and participation in the arts for people of all ages and all levels. Now in its third year, the International Playwriting Competition aims to encourage new writing for young performers and audiences around the world to engage with – in classrooms, drama clubs, youth theatre groups and more.

For this competition we are asking you to write an original one act play which is EITHER suitable for young performers (under 12) OR intended for teenage audiences (12-16 year olds).
The winning playwrights in each category will be awarded cash prizes of £1,000 and will travel to London to see their play performed as part of Trinity’s first ever International Festival of Playwriting & Performance. Previous prize winners have come from Australia, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Malta, Singapore, South Africa and the UK.

For more information and to send your work

7th September

Street Voices 4

Street Voices 4 is a playwriting course for emerging writers from Yorkshire. It’s open to anyone aged over 18. It’s an opportunity for writers to work in a safe, supported, professional environment; to find their voices; and to inject fresh stories, ideas and innovations into theatre.

Street Voices 4 is a series of developmental workshops, some of which are with actors, held over weekends in venues in Yorkshire from October 2012 to final performances in February 2013.  Each writer will be helped to realise an original twenty-minute short play. The workshops will be led by renowned playwright and screenwriter Mark Catley and will also include master classes by specialists including the BBC Writersroom.

There will also be one-to-one mentoring sessions, with feedback on work in progress, and a peer support network.

Four of the short plays will be performed by an ensemble of actors to the public in February 2013.

We would like to see an example of your writing as part of your application. Street Voices 4 is a call to emerging writers at the beginning of their careers, slam poets, novelists, comic book writers… anyone and everyone who would value a supported approach to writing for stage.

Writing Workshops:

6th October / 20th October 2012

3rd November / 17th November 2012

Workshops with Actors:

8th & 9th December 2012 / 12th & 13th January 2013

Rehearsal Period for selected plays:

26th January – 3rd February 2013

Performances:

4th – 9th February 2013

The course is free.  Freedom Studios is committed to investing in emerging writers so you do not have to pay any fees.  The course will cost you time, travel and effort.

Please fill in the application form, which you can download here –  Word – WRITERS APPLICATION FORM SV4   PDF – WRITERS APPLICATION FORM SV4. or request an application form by sending an e-mail to hello@freedomsudios.co.uk, and you also need to send examples of your work.  If you have any questions send an e-mail to hello@freedomstudios.co.uk or telephone 01274-730077.

http://www.freedomstudios.co.uk/projects/street-voices/

8th September

acg Drama Award

The ACG is launching a new Drama Award with a writing competition and is looking for innovative and creative play scripts of 40 to 50 minutes in length. There is no fixed subject but it should in some way reflect the human condition, either personally, socially or politically, or of course these can merge.

The competition is in two parts:

The Julian Battersby Award for young playwrights under the age of 30
Prize £500

The Jasperian Award for playwrights from the age of 30
Prize £300

The winning plays in each of the two categories will be showcased in a play reading by professional actors at an evening arranged by ACG.

Entry fee for both categories is £20. An application form can be downloaded as a pdf, or obtained from the ACG office. Download.

http://www.artscentregroup.org.uk/index.htm

12th September

High Tide Boot Camp

The HighTide Writers’ Bootcamp is the first of three special events organised by HighTide in partnership with IdeasTap, aimed to develop the writing of exceptional emerging playwrights from around the country. The first of these bootcamps will be held in London for 15 writers, the second in Suffolk, the home of the HighTide festival,  and the third in Manchester.

This brief closes on Wednesday 12 September at 12pm and is open to IdeasTap members aged 16 and above. If you have any technical queries, please visit the Help Centre. Late entries will not be accepted under any circumstances, including technical issues – so don’t leave your application to the last minute.

http://www.ideastap.com/Opportunities/Brief/9d6a0acd-15c8-4634-8656-a0b500c8548c#Overview

23rd September

The Avalon Mentorship

An all-encompassing development programme for emerging Scottish Playwrights.

The Avalon Mentorship is a 6-month development programme run by Siege Perilous in conjunction with its Writer-in-Residence Caroline Dunford. Each playwright will receive one-to-one mentoring to develop their writing skills, be guided on the creative process, and learn about the operational aspects of staging a show.

Up to 6 Scottish playwrights will be selected to participate from the work they submit which can be a full script or a work-in-progress they wish to develop.  Avalon Mentorship will be open for submissions for a 2-week period from 10th September, and any Scotland-based playwright will be eligible to apply. The playwright does not have to have been previously produced. The script should not have been professionally performed and needs to be an exclusive submission to this programme.

Visit the Siege Perilous website for more details on the criteria and how to apply.

 

28th September

Tamasha & South Asian Literature Festival Scratch

Tamasha are holding a Scratch Night at the Bush Theatre on Friday 2nd November 2012, 7:30pm, in association with the South Asian Literature Festival’s new writing strand, ELEMENTS. The scratch provides an opportunity for writers to showcase their work in a professional setting to a public audience. This enables the artist to test out their work and to receive feedback to develop it further.

Submissions should be:
• existing work or work in progress, which is ready for a public viewing
• ideally 15-20 minutes, no longer than 25 minutes (either a complete piece or an extract from a longer piece) involving a cast of up to 3 characters maximum (monologues that are character driven, and reveal a narrative beneath, are also encouraged)
• a piece that requires minimal technical set-up for performance
• broadly consistent with Tamasha’s vision as a company and the theme Small Lives, Global Ties, a central theme running though Tamasha’s current projects. We are particularly interested in work that is rooted in the personal, and the particular, yet chimes with universal truths
• this opportunity is open to writers from all backgrounds but pieces should be linked to South Asia, featuring any persons or places connected to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Maldives, Bhutan and Pakistan.

http://www.tamasha.org.uk/salf/