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Dateline: 14th October, 2007
King's Cross Award Winner Leonardo Stole My Crayon by Jane Elson has won the 2007 King's Cross New Writing Award. She will be presented with her winning cheque at the opening ceremony of the Courtyard’s new premises in Hoxton on 24th October. The Courtyard will be producing a rehearsed reading of the winning play early in 2008. Thanks to the commitment of the Courtyard’s Artistic director, June Abbott, the King's Cross Award, a biennial competition which seeks to honour the most outstanding and inventive work of theatre writing by a writer from the UK and the Republic of Ireland, has mushroomed since its launch in 2003 from a modest local contest with only 27 entries to a one of Britain’s leading new writing contest, and now plays are entered by both new and established writers.
Leonardo Stole My Crayon is about young prisoners facing many obstacles, including dyslexia and other learning difficulties, whose lives are changed by entering an art competition. It won the judges over with its believable characters. Jane Elson, a dyslexic herself, who wrote the play after running some drama workshops with young offenders at HMS Polmont in Scotland, portrays a brutal environment with unflinching honesty, but also with humour, passion and ultimate optimism.
However, the final judging panel (who this year consisted of designer John Bell, The Agency’s Nick Quinn, playwright Robin Soans and director Phil Willmott, as well as June Abbott) were faced with a difficult task in selecting a winner from the six shortlisted plays. Leonardo Stole My Crayon’s closest rival was The Death of Margaret Thatcher by Tom Green, an imaginative, state-of-the-nation play which examines the impact of the former PM’s legacy by tracing the stories of three very disparate characters who are, in an imagined future, caught up in the aftermath of her death. The other authors shortlisted for the award were Dominic Mitchell, Sarah Grochala, Richard Edwards and Steve Wallis. A book of actors’ audition speeches, compiled from outstanding entries to this and previous years’ Awards, is to be published in the near future.
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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