East Midlands-based playwrights Sarah Page, Azma Dar, Laura Turner, Ben Weatherill, Daniel Hoffmann-Gill, Jimmy Osborne and Jools Ayodeji have all been shortlisted for the inaugural playwriting competition at Leicester’s Curve.
Working in partnership with IdeasTap, BBC Writersroom and Writing East Midlands, these emerging writers are receiving bespoke mentorship to help create a first draft of a new play. Extracts will be shown during a live final on Saturday 12 April at Curve’s Inside Out Festival.
The overall winner will be announced live at the event and will become Curve's playwright on attachment.
He or she will receive a year's worth of mentorship, research and development support and a direct cash award of £1,000 to develop and refine what should be a major new play that speaks to the East Midlands.
On the judging panel will be Neil Macpherson, artistic director of the Finborough Theatre in London and multiple award-winning playwrights Ishy Din, writer of the 2013 Manchester Theatre Awards best new play Snookered, and Dawn King, winner of the inaugural National Theatre Foundation Playwright award for her play Foxfinder.
Suba Das, Curve’s associate director who is curating the Inside Out Festival and who is also on the judging panel, commented, “It's so exciting to have whittled the many applications we received down to these seven plays.
“The breathtaking range of stories from historical drama through to fantastical futurism, from rural tales to gritty inner-city stories, is a brilliant reflection of the diversity of our region and the many different voices that make the Leicester and the East Midlands unique.
“It’ll be a challenge to identify only one writer to work with over the coming year, but we're delighted to know that we've supported each of these seven playwrights already in the creation of a new piece of drama.”
Tickets for the playwriting competition final cost £3.