RSC ANNOUNCES SIX NEW PLAYWRIGHTS-IN-RESIDENCE FOR 2025-26
RSC ANNOUNCES SIX NEW PLAYWRIGHTS-IN-RESIDENCE FOR 2025-26
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The RSC has today announced Pamela Carter, James Fritz, Natasha Gordon, Karim Khan, Laura Lomas and Vinay Patel as the six playwrights taking part in its 2026 COHORT programme: an artist-led playwriting scheme offering six of the UK’s most exciting playwrights the opportunity to be commissioned by the company as part of a nine-month programme of peer-to-peer support, in-person residencies and creative masterclasses.
Created by RSC Writers in Residence Zoe Cooper and Stewart Pringle and inspired by Sir Peter Hall’s founding vision of a ‘company’ of actors who share life and the experience of Stratford-upon-Avon with one another as they work, COHORT brings together six writers engaged in the distinct but shared endeavour of writing six new plays for the RSC’s stages in a mutually supportive, non-competitive and creative environment.
The 2026 COHORT programme launched earlier this year, with one of the six chosen playwrights recruited through open application, attracting over 200 submissions in total.
RSC Co-Artistic Directors Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans said: “From the earliest days of the RSC under the visionary leadership of Sir Peter Hall, new writing has been an essential part of who we are as a company, where thrilling new works from the most exciting storytellers stand shoulder-to-shoulder with bold re-imaginings of classic texts. We are delighted to welcome such an inspiring collective of artists to Stratford-upon-Avon in 2026 and look forward to collaborating with each of them as they immerse themselves fully in the creative life of the RSC, expand their knowledge of the theatre-making process and forge meaningful new partnerships along the way.”
RSC Writer-in-Residence Zoe Cooper said: “Over the past year Stewart and I have had the enormous privilege of being welcomed into the heart of the Royal Shakespeare Company. To be given the opportunity to see the process of making work for the Company's stages up close has felt rare and special. We have made connections with creatives of all kinds that will undoubtedly go on to enrich our work as writers. These six writers have already achieved so much in their careers, told us brilliant, complex and moving stories. We are so excited to extend the same opportunity of being part of the Company to them. We can't wait to read the stories that they each write for us and see their plays on the RSC's stages.”
RSC Writer-in-Residence Stewart Pringle added: “It feels like an honour and a privilege to be able to convene this first COHORT, and to welcome six such incredible talents and brains into the RSC. Pamela, Vinay, James, Karim, Natasha and Laura are simply some of the most exciting, form-pushing, heartfelt and humane writers working in the UK at the moment. There couldn’t be a better gang to be marching towards our stages!”
Across a series of five-day residences in Stratford-upon-Avon, the six writers will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in RSC theatre-making practice. During residencies, COHORT members will be invited to meet and develop relationships with artists from across the RSC and participate in a range of masterclasses to help expand and enrich their research, planning and writing process.
Pamela Carter is a playwright, librettist and dramaturg. She has been working internationally in theatre, dance, opera, film, visual arts and museum design since 2004.
Recent work as a writer and librettist includes: A Country House a song cycle with composer Alex Ho, inspired by Charlotte Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (Glyndebourne), The Misfortune of the English (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Duck Rabbit, a digital work about her mixed-race heritage (Chinese Arts Now), Schauinsland, a musikteater piece (Theater Freiberg), We Are In Time, an opera about a heart transplant (Scottish Ensemble), Them!, a large-scale performance about identity and change for actors, dancers, a band and a colony of 150,000 leaf-cutter ants, The Male Queen, an adaptation of a seventeenth century Chinese opera by Wang Jide for the RSC/Royal Lyceum.
She has a longstanding collaboration with director/designer Stewart Laing. Her plays for his company Untitled Projects include: The End of Eddy (Unicorn Theatre London/BAM/Melbourne Festival), Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner (National Theatre of Scotland/Edinburgh International Festival), Slope and An Argument About Sex (After Marivaux’s La dispute) .
She has also made work for the Royal Court Theatre, The Yard Theatre, Scottish Dance Theatre, London International Festival of Theatre, and the Young Vic. Her plays have been performed in the USA and Australia and in translation in a number of countries in Europe, South America and the Far East. Her play Skåne, first produced at Hampstead Theatre, won the New Writing Commission at the Berliner Festspiele Stückemarkt.
Between 2010 and 2020, she was employed by the Stockholm-based artist subject Goldin+Senneby to write about high frequency trading, credit default swaps, land ownership, and pharmaceuticals.
As dramaturg she has worked with a wide variety of artists and companies including Shotput Dance Theatre, Graeae Theatre, The Pappy Show, Vanishing Point Theatre, DAU Films, Holly Blakey Dance, Malmö Opera, and design company studio Riley.
James Fritz is a playwright and screenwriter from London. His stage plays include The Flea (Yard Theatre, London), Lava (Nottingham Playhouse/Fifth Word; revived Soho Theatre), Parliament Square (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Bush Theatre, London - winner of a Bruntwood Prize), Start Swimming (Young Vic Taking Part, Edinburgh Fringe), The Fall (National Youth Theatre at the Finborough Theatre, London), Ross & Rachel (MOTOR at Assembly George Square, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 59E59 Theaters, New York) and Four Minutes Twelve Seconds (Hampstead Theatre - winner of Most Promising Playwright, Critics' Circle Awards)
The third series of his BBC Radio 4 drama anthology series Life & Time will air in 2026. His other audio plays include The Test Batter Can’t Breath, Dear Harry Kane (ARIA Gold Award, Prix Europa, Best Original Single Drama, BBC Audio Drama Awards, 2024), Skyscraper Lullaby (an Audible original), 8.99 (ARIA Gold Award), Death of a Cosmonaut (BBC R4), and Comment Is Free (winner of both the Imison and Tinniswood Awards for audio drama, 2017).
He is currently on attachment to the National Theatre and The Royal Court as well as adapting The Flea into a feature film and developing original television projects.
Natasha Gordon is a British playwright and actress of Jamaican descent. Her debut play, Nine Night, enjoyed a sold-out run at the National Theatre in April 2018 before transferring to Trafalgar Studio in 2019. In 2022 the play received its US premiere at the Round House in Washington DC and a revival was produced by Leeds and Nottingham playhouses in the UK. In 2018 Natasha won the Charles Wintour Award for most promising playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards as well as the Critics’ Circle Award and the play was nominated for an Olivier award for Best Comedy. She is currently working on commissions for the National Theatre.
As a performer, her stage credits include: Nine Night (Trafalgar Studios), Red Velvet (Tricycle Theatre/St Ann’s Warehouse), The Low Road, Clubland (Royal Court Theatre), Mules (Young Vic) and As You Like It (Royal Shakespeare Company) . Film and television includes: Dough, Line of Duty, Class and Danny and the Human Zoo .
Karim Khan is a screenwriter and playwright, based in Oxford. His sell-out play Brown Boys Swim won a Fringe First, and BBC Popcorn award at Edinburgh Festival 2022, and was later optioned by A24. Karim is currently preparing to direct his debut short film with Amazon Prime Video and the NFTS.
Karim has two upcoming world premieres: Before The Millennium at Old Fire Station in December 2025, and Sweetmeats at the Bush Theatre in February 2026. He is currently on attachment with the Royal Court Theatre and the National Theatre, for which he is writing new plays, and he was part of Soho Six. His past credits include Corrosive (Pegasus Theatre, 2019), Beyond Shame (Derby Theatre, 2018) and Orange Juice (The Pleasance, Burton Taylor Studio, 2017).
For TV, Karim has written on seasons 3 and 6 of All Creatures Great & Small (C5/PBS), for which he won the Best Episodic Debut award in 2023. He has been in various TV writer's rooms. In 2022, he was awarded the inaugural Pillars Artist Fellowship - sponsored by Netflix and Amazon studios and supported by Riz Ahmed’s Left Handed Films. Karim is an MA Screenwriting graduate (2019) from the National Film and Television School with a scholarship sponsored by Toledo Productions and Channel 4.
Laura Lomas was a writer in residence at Shakespeare’s Globe and Clean Break Theatre Company and has been on attachment to Paines Plough and The National Theatre Studio.
Her recent plays include: The House Party (Chichester Festival Theatre / Headlong), Metamorphoses (Globe), Chaos (National Theatre Connections), Abandon (Hampstead Theatre Youth Company), The Blue Road (Youth companies at Dundee Rep/Derby Theatre/Royal & Derngate/Theatre Royal Plymouth), Joanne (Clean Break/Soho Theatre), Bird (Derby Live/Nottingham Playhouse/UK tour), Blister (Paines Plough/RWCMD/Gate Theatre), The Island (Nottingham Playhouse/Det Norske Oslo) and Wasteland (New Perspectives Theatre/Derby Live).
Laura wrote the libretto for The Blue Woman, composed by Laura Bowler and directed by Katie Mitchell, for The Royal Opera House and Britten Pears Arts.
Radio plays include: Fragments (Afternoon Drama, BBC Radio 4), My Boy (Somethin’ Else Productions/BBC Radio 4, winner of Best Drama, Sony Radio Academy Awards) and Lucy Island (BBC Radio 3, The Wire)
Screen credits include: Sweetpea (Sky), The Crow Girl (Paramount Plus), The Midwich Cuckoos (Sky), Hanna (Amazon), Glue (E4) and Rough Skin for Coming UP (Channel 4) which was nominated for Best British Short at the BIFAs and Best UK Short at Raindance Film Festival.
Vinay Patel is a scriptwriter from South East London. His TV debut, Murdered By My Father, won 2 RTS Awards including Best Single Drama and was nominated for three BAFTAs. Vinay has since written episodes for Good Karma Hospital, Doctor Who and, most recently, the Netflix adaptation of David Nicholls’ One Day. He is developing a TV series with Motive Pictures/Fifth Season and a historical sports feature with Film4.
For theatre, he has written a romantic epic (An Adventure) for the Bush, an office satire about language and offence (Sticks & Stones) for Paines Plough, and a South Asian sci-fi adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, for the Yard/HOME. He is currently an Associate Playwright at the Royal Court Theatre as well as working on several projects for the stage including a play for Empire Street Productions, an adaptation of Cloud Atlas for English Touring Theatre and a musical for ATG.
ENDS
For further enquiries, please contact: Kate Evans 07920 244 434 kate.evans@rsc.org.uk
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NOTES TO EDITORS
The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
The RSC is generously supported by RSC America
COHORT is supported by Jon and Nora Lee Sedmak
New Work at the RSC is generously supported by Hawthornden Foundation and The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust
About the RSC: The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a leading global theatre company that sparks local, national and international conversations that build connections, create opportunities and bring joy. We passionately believe that great storytelling can change the world, and that theatre offers its own unique form of storytelling: it’s live and shared, and transforms a group of strangers into audiences who, together, experience a story come to life in front of their eyes.
We collaborate with the most exciting artists to tell the stories of our time, and through a range of programmes we nurture the talent of the future.
We perform on three stages in our home in Stratford-upon-Avon, in London and in communities and schools across the country and around the world.
Our transformative Creative Learning and Engagement programmes reach over half a million young people each year.
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
