• Celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, 37 Plays is a nationwide search for the most exciting new voices of today.
• In partnership with regional theatres across the country, 37 Plays is open to anybody, whether a first-time writer, an emerging or professional playwright
• Judges include Associate Director of the Unicorn Theatre Rachael Bagshaw, award-winning author Sharna Jackson, Associate Editor and Theatre Critic Lyn Gardner, Ian Charleson Award-winning actor Bally Gill, Award-winning playwrights Juliet Gilkes-Romero and Mark Ravenhill, RSC Associate Artist Ray Fearon and Actor/Producer David Threlfall.
• Chosen 37 plays to be announced on 18 May 2023 and performed, script-in-hand, across the UK and online in Autumn 2023. 

DOWNLOAD JUDGES HEADSHOTS HERE  

Today (Thursday 27 April), the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Theatre Partners announce the Judging panel for the nationwide playwriting competition 37 Plays: an ambitious and ground-breaking new initiative open to anybody from anywhere in the UK. More than 2,000+ plays were submitted and have been read by a panel of 24 readers recruited from across the UK. 

Acting Artistic Director of the RSC, Erica Whyman, will chair a panel of 10 judges. The full panel includes theatre-maker and Associate Director of The Unicorn Theatre Rachel Bagshaw, actor and RSC Associate Artist Ray Fearon, Theatre Critic and Associate Editor of The Stage Lyn Gardner, Best-selling author Sharna Jackson, 2018 Ian Charleson Award-winner Bally Gill, award-winning playwrights Mark Ravenhill and Juliet Gilkes Romero and actor/writer and Associate Artist David Threlfall. 

They will be joined by Harry and Ella from the RSC’s Youth Advisory Board, which was established in 2019 to reflect the diverse voices of young people from across the UK. The Youth Advisory Board consists of 26 young people from the RSC’s Associate Schools programme who believe passionately in why the arts matter and are active champions of theatre and the arts within their communities.   

Erica Whyman, RSC Acting Artistic Director and Chair of the 37 Plays judging panel, said; “I’m so thrilled to be working with this amazing array of judges, who bring such a range of artistic expertise to the task of putting together an unforgettable collection of plays. 

“We have all been blown away by the calibre and genuine diversity of our 68-strong shortlist. There are intriguing and exhilarating plays from every region of the UK, from every age group and representing a wide range of backgrounds and life experience. A notable number of the plays tell stories we have not seen on our stages before. There are flights of wild imagination, tragedies, histories, experiments in form and delightful comedies - everything that makes it possible to survive hardship and thrive in changing times. It is going to be a painful process of selection in these final stages!  

“It matters very much in a world of sometimes ferocious division or hasty judgment, that we curate a Folio that gives meaningful insight into how life is really lived in the UK today. To have invited so many first-time writers, from the very young to some very wise elders, to stand beside established professionals is a significant expression of how much creativity lurks on these islands. We look forward, with our Associate Theatre Partners, to staging readings of all 37 Plays this autumn so that we can offer up these plays for future production in theatres, schools and communities everywhere”.  

37 Plays is led by the RSC and its network of 12 regional Theatre Partners and seeks to capture and write the stories of today.  

The nationwide search for plays closed on 31 January 2023, attracting 2,000+ submissions from across the UK. Over a six-week period, 24 readers read 31 plays per week to create an initial longlist of 350 plays. From the longlist, a total of 70 plays have been shortlisted for commendation. A full list of shortlisted play titles and writers is available to view via 37plays.co.uk  

Of the 2,000+ submissions received in total:  

• 90% of entries were submitted by writers aged 18+, 7% by writers aged 11-17 and 3% by writers aged under 11.  

• The largest number of entries came from Greater London at 558, followed by the South-East of England at 270 and the North West of England at 197. The full geographical breakdown of entries was as follows: East Midlands (136), East of England (131), Jersey (2), North-East (35), North West (197), Northern Ireland (19), Scotland (88), South East (270), South West (188), Wales (77), West Midlands (188) and Yorkshire and Humberside (158). 

• 6% of the total number of submissions received involved working with one of the RSC’s Associate Partner Theatre and, of those 113, 76 entries involved working with an RSC Associate School.

• 16% of total entrants came from C2DE households.

• Of the total number of entries, 78% of applicants identified as white, 6% as Mixed Heritage, 3% as Black, 3% as Asian, 2% as Other (with a further 7% preferring not to say).

• Having been asked to rate their playwriting experience level from 1-10 at the point of submission (level 1 = never written a play before to 10 = very experienced playwright), 22% of applicants identified as first-time writers.

37 Plays will explore who we are as a society and inspire conversation about what the future of dramatic writing might look and feel like, on and off our stages.

Play submissions were divided into three age categories of up to 11 years old, 11 to 17 years old and 18 years old and above. Multi-authored plays were invited to nominate a lead writer or average age of writers.

Submissions were requested to be predominantly written in English, or in British Sign Language, with a translation provided for any text not in English language*. Submissions should be a complete original story, not a sample of a story or an adaptation of a story and submitted plays must not have had a professional production or be under commission at the time of submission.

All of the 37 plays selected will be awarded a fee for publication, performance and/or broadcast. Any submission subsequently commissioned for production will be subject to usual commission processes approved by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.

Full details of Terms and Conditions of entry and associated FAQs can be accessed via 37plays.co.uk

Ends 

For further information contact Kate Evans (Media and Communications Manager) at kate.evans@rsc.org.uk 07920 244 434 

Notes to editors  

Rachel Bagshaw is Associate Director at the Unicorn Theatre where work includes: Grimm Tales (Unicorn Digital), The Bee in Me and Aesop’s Fables. Other film work includes Let Loose (Unicorn Digital / ENB) and BBC Culture in Quarantine commission Where I Go When I Can’t be Where I Am. She is currently Peter Hall bursary Associate at the National Theatre. Theatre credits include: A Dead Body in Taos (Fuel / Bristol Old Vic), Augmented (Told by an Idiot); Midnight Movie (Royal Court); The Shape of the Pain (BAC / UK tour); Icons (WOW Festival, Hull); Resonance at the Still Point of Change (Unlimited Festival, Southbank); The Rhinestone Rollers, Just Me, Bell (Graeae). 

Sharna Jackson is an author and artistic director who creates work to encourage children and young people to participate in arts, culture and publishing. She lives on a ship in Rotterdam. 

Sharna’s latest book, The Good Turn, is a slightly spooky mystery with themes of social activism as a trio of young friends start their own scout troop in Luton.  

Her debut novel, High-Rise Mystery won numerous awards and accolades including Best Book for Younger Readers at the 2020 Waterstones Book Prize. She released two art activity books with Tate in 2014 before writing Black Artists Shaping the World in 2021. She was Southbank Centre’s Imagine A Story Author in 2019/20 creating London/Londoff with over 1200 school children. She curates Ensemble – a show highlighting ethnic minority talent and achievement in the UK games industry. 

Lyn Gardner is associate editor for The Stage and has written for many national and international publications. She is a recipient of a UK Theatre Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre, a Total Theatre Significant Contribution Award, and a Tonic Award for theatre journalism.  

Juliet Gilkes Romero is an award-winning writer for stage and screen. She is the recipient of the 2020 Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play with The Whip, the Roland Rees Bursary 2019, (named in honour of the co-founder of the Alfred Fagon Award) and the BBC World Service Alexander Onassis Research Bursary. 

Juliet was Writer in Residence at the National Theatre attached to the New Work Department for 2022/2023.  

Her plays include; The Gift a retelling of Medea filmed for Jermyn Street Theatre’s 15 Heroines of Greek Tragedy season 2020, The Whip at the RSC’s Swan Theatre 2020, Day of The Living as part of RSC’s Mischief Festival 2018, Upper Cut at the Southwark Playhouse 2015, At The Gates of Gaza, Birmingham Repertory Theatre & tour, winner of the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain Best Play Award 2009.  

Screen and audio includes: Soon Gone; A Windrush Chronicle for BBC co-produced by Sir Lenny Henry’s production company Douglas Road and the Young Vic Theatre, and One Hot Summer broadcast on BBC Radio 4. 

Bally Gill is originally from Coventry and graduated from Rose Bruford College in 2015. In 2019, Bally won the Ian Charleson Award for his portrayal of Romeo in the Royal Shakespeare Company's Romeo and Juliet. 

Film includes: Allelujah (Pathe/BBC) and Bus Driver (Batavia Productions). 

Television includes: Sherwood (BBC); Slow Horses (Apple/See Saw Films); This is Going to Hurt (BBC); The Lazarus Project (Sky); Manhunt (ITV1); Around the World in Eighty Days (Federation Entertainment); Wanderlust (BBC) and NW (BBC). 

Theatre includes: When the Crows Visit (Kiln Theatre); Romeo & Juliet (The Royal Shakespeare Company); Macbeth (The Royal Shakespeare Company); Coriolanus (The Royal Shakespeare Company); Salome (The Royal Shakespeare Company); Vice Versa (The Royal Shakespeare Company); The Island Nation (Arcola Theatre); Always Orange (The Royal Shakespeare Company); Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier (The Royal Shakespeare Company); A Local Boy (The Arts Theatre); Dinner with Saddam (Menier Chocolate Factory); Table (Stratford circus) and Elijah’s Violin (JW3). 

Mark Ravenhill is a playwright. His debut play, Shopping and Fucking premiered at the Royal Court theatre in 1996 to critical acclaim, quickly establishing him as one of the most exciting new voices in British Theatre.  

Mark’s previous work for the Royal Shakespeare Company includes Candide (2013), A Life of Galileo, by Bertolt Brecht, translated by Mark Ravenhill (2013) and The Boy In The Dress with music and lyrics by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers, adapted from the novel by David Walliams (2019).  

Additional writing credits include TSome Explicit Polaroids (Ambassadors Theatre, 1999), Mother Clap’s Molly House (Lyttleton Theatre, 2001), Totally Over You (2004), Citizenship (National Theatre, 2018), and The Cane (Donmar Warehouse, 2018).  

Ray Fearon was born in London and trained at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, where he played the title role in Othello and Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost. He was awarded the Carlton Hobbs Radio Award and the George Benson Award for his portrayal of Othello at the National Theatre while still at Rose Bruford. Ray Fearon is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

RSC credits include: Hecuba, Julius Caesar (Award for Best Actor in a Visiting Production), Pericles, Othello, Don Carlos, Romeo and Juliet, The White Devil, Troilus and Cressida, Moby Dick and The Merchant of Venice. 

Other theatre includes: Macbeth (Manchester Festival. MTA Award for Best Supporting Actor); The Lower Ninth, World Music (Donmar Warehouse); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Sheffield Crucible); Lower Ninth (Donmar Warehouse/Trafalgar Studios); Soldier’s Fortune (Young Vic); Invisible Man (Bridewell); Blues for Mister Charlie, Raisin in the Sun (MEN Best Actor Award, nominated for TMA Best Actor Award), Love’s Labour’s Lost (Manchester Royal Exchange); The School for Scandal, Othello (Liverpool Everyman); Cloud Nine (Contact); Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (National Theatre); Venice Preserved (Almeida); and The Tempest (Oxford Stage Co.). 

Television includes: Da Vinci Demons, Moving On, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Above Suspicion, Silk, Death in Paradise, Homicide, Missing, Doctors, Coronation Street, Revelations, Keen Eddie, Waking the Dead, The Life and Times of Shakespeare, The Bill, Outside the Rules, As If, A Christmas Carol, EastEnders, Band of Gold, Brothers and Sisters and Prime Suspect. 

Film includes: Macbeth, Beauty and the Beast, The Hooligan Factory, The Chef’s Letter, Beate Uhse, Morlocks, Hamilton, Lulu and Jim, Summer in Cape Town, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Clandestine Marriage, Hamlet and The Therapist. 

David Threlfall is an Olivier and BAFTA award-winning actor and an RSC Associate Artist. Theatre for the RSC includes Smike in Nicholas Nickleby (1980) London, NY, (Olivier award, Tony Nomination) Don Quixote 2016/19. Other theatre credits include: Bed of Roses, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, The Rehearsal (Roundabout) The War At Home (James Duff) The Traveller (J-C van Itallie), Hamlet, (Blue/Orange), Oedipus, Count of Monte Cristo, Present Laughter, Peer Gynt. Hedda Gabler, Beckett’s The Old Tune, Faith Healer and Hangman B/way (Tony Nomination) 

Television includes: Frank Gallagher in original Shameless (5 RTS Awards), Housewife 49, (BAFTA) Sam Beckett in Waiting For Andre (Sky), Nightingales, Ripper Street, Troy, Tommy Cooper; The Queen’s Sister, Conspiracy (HBO) Paradise Postponed, Edgar in Laurence Olivier’s King Lear, Dodger and Funny Woman (2022)  

Film includes: Master and Commander, Nowhere Boy, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Chunky Monkey, Patriot Games, Russia House, Black Sea and Hot Fuzz  

Radio: Sony Awards for Spike and the Elfin Oak & Ken Dodd in Happiness! 

The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England 

The RSC is generously supported by RSC America  

The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund 

37 Plays is supported by Jon and NoraLee Sedmak 

New Work at the RSC is generously supported by The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust 

The RSC's Associate Regional Theatres are:  

The Grand Theatre, Blackpool; The Alhambra Theatre, Bradford; The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury; Hall for Cornwall; Hull Truck Theatre, Hull; Intermission Youth, London; New Vic Theatre, Stoke on Trent; Northern Stage, Newcastle; Nottingham Theatre Royal, Nottingham; Norwich Theatre; Silhouette Youth Theatre; York Theatre Royal, York.  

Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)  

The Royal Shakespeare Company creates world class theatre, made in Stratford-upon-Avon and shared around the world, performing plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as commissioning an exceptionally wide range of original work from contemporary writers. Our purpose is to ensure that Shakespeare is for everyone, and we do that by unlocking the power of his plays and of live performance, throughout the UK and across the world.  

We believe everybody’s life is enriched by culture and creativity. We have trained generations of the very best theatre makers and we continue to nurture the talent of the future. Our transformative Learning Programmes reach over half a million young people and adults each year, and through our Placemaking and Public Programme we create projects with and for communities who have not historically engaged with our work. We are a leader in creative immersive technologies and digital development.  

We have a proud record of innovation, diversity and excellence on stage and are determined to grasp the opportunity to become an even more inclusive, progressive, relevant and ambitious organisation.  

We are committed to being a teaching and learning theatre – in which we create world class theatre for, with and by audiences and theatre makers of all ages. We provide training for emerging and established theatre makers and arts professionals, for teachers and for young people. We share learning formally and informally. We embed training and research across our company, work and processes.  

We recognise the climate emergency and work hard to embed environmental sustainability into our operations, creative work and business practice, making a commitment to continually reduce our carbon footprint.  

Keep Your RSC supports our mission to create theatre at its best, unlocking Shakespeare and transforming lives. Thousands of generous audience members, trusts and foundations and partners supported Keep Your RSC in 2020 and, alongside a £19.4 million loan from the Culture Recovery Fund, we are thrilled to be welcoming audiences back. It will take time to recover, to reopen all our theatres, and many years to repay the loan and the support and generosity of our audiences is more important than ever. Please donate at rsc.org.uk/donate  

Arts Council England  

Arts Council England is the national development body for arts and culture across England, working to enrich people’s lives. We support a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to visual art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2018 and 2022, we will invest £1.45 billion of public money from government and an estimated £860 million from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. www.artscouncil.org.uk