The first major events for this year’s London Writers’ Week have been announced.
Tamasha’s artistic director, Fin Kennedy, will be hosting a round table discussion In Battalions: State of the Industry.
This is the third such Festival, previously having taken place at Central Saint Martins firstly as part of The Year of Experimentation and then in partnership with Devoted and Disgruntled and the MA Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London.
In 2013 Kennedy wrote the report In Battalions (and in 2014 subsequently published a Delphi study), looking at the effect of Arts Council’s cuts on the development of new plays.
The open discussion at London Writers’ Week which will feature speakers from amongst the industry and Arts Council England will consider the Government’s funding plans and the impact of the cuts so far.
The other focal events are a look at three-year community project Old Vic New Voices as it draws to a close with project director Alexander Ferris and the first University Women in the Arts event with Kate Rowland, founder of BBC Writersroom and former creative director of new writing at the BBC.
The group behind London Writers’ Week is made up of the MA Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins, The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Writers at Work Productions, NAWE, BBC Writersroom, Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland, The London Playwrights Blog and Tamasha Theatre Company.
The programme includes a day of events with the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, a showcase of the Dark Horse Festival, a new festival for unproduced plays, a look at the The Student Guide to Writing: Playwriting with the Bush Theatre and Oberon Books and a range of workshops.
London Writers’ Week starts on 4 July; see the web site for the programme to date.