Ashington based playwright Sarah Tarbit has won the inaugural Box of Tricks and Sky Studios Screen / Play Award.
Her play You Belong Here, which explores the effects suicide can have on a community and the people left behind, will be developed with theatre company Box of Tricks and Sky Studios' Innovation Hub into the first draft of a 70-minute stage play and a 20-minute screenplay throughout 2021, culminating in a table read or rehearsed reading.
She will receive £10,250 and Box of Tricks will have an exclusive option to produce the stage play in a future season.
Most recently, she has had two shorts produced by Live Theatre: Invisible Boundaries (October 2020, as part of 10 Minutes to… Call Home) and The Whale Washed Up On Christmas Eve (December 2020, as part of 5 Plays of Christmas). She was also highly commended for the 2020 Sid Chaplin Award, part of the Northern Writers Awards.
Her writing for children takes inspiration from the myths and legends of Northumberland, while her adult work explores working-class life in the region.
“I'm buzzing to have been chosen for the Screen / Play Award,” she says. “What an opportunity! I can't thank Box of Tricks, Sky Studios and the rest of the judging panel enough for believing in me and seeing value in my story. It means validation—not just for me as a writer, but for working-class stories and stories from underrepresented groups as a whole.”