Matthew Gabrielli from Birmingham is one of three winners of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass Trust Pitch Your Play writing contest.
The scheme invites people aged 16 to 30 to pitch for the opportunity to stage a reading of a new, unpublished play at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Gabrielli is a graduate of the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse young writers’ programme and gained a masters degree in playwriting studies at the University of Birmingham. His work has been performed in the Liverpool Playhouse Studio, The King’s Arms, Salford and the RSC's The Other place.
He is currently associate writer with the Lion Tamers Theatre Company who produced his first full-length play Removed and Destroyed. He was part of a six-month research and development project with Birmingham Camera Obscura.
In his winning play Zombiegate, Sophie and Jamie are on their way to a fancy dress party dressed as zombies when a misjudged selfie makes them the centre of a social media storm. The play is described as “funny and thought-provoking” and is a “razor-sharp satire about the rise of Internet trolls and the return of public shaming, exploring social media, mobs and toxic masculinity”.
A rehearsed reading of Zombiegate will be held at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on Friday 26 October at 2:30PM. Admission will be free.