SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN FOR THE RSC’S NATIONWIDE PLAYWRITING PROJECT
37 PLAYS – a major new project open to anybody from anywhere in the UK to write the stories of today
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- A folio for our time: Celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, 37 Plays is a nationwide search for the most exciting new voices of today
- Submissions for plays opens from 3 January until 31 January 2023
- In partnership with regional theatres across the country, 37 Plays is open to anybody whether a first-time writer, an emerging or professional playwright
- Chosen 37 plays to be announced in April 2023 and performed, script-in-hand, across the UK and online in Autumn 2023.
As the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) celebrates the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2023, the Company today announced the opening of submissions for its new nationwide playwriting competition 37 Plays: an ambitious and ground-breaking new initiative open to anybody from anywhere in the UK.
37 Plays is led by the RSC and its network of 12 regional theatre partners and seeks to capture and write the stories of our nation. It is open to children, young people and adults, including established, emerging and first-time writers.
Submissions open at 12noon on Tuesday 3 January and close at 12noon on Saturday 31 January. Those wishing to submit a play can do so by visiting https://submit.37plays.co.uk/
Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of the RSC said:
‘As we look forward to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio this year, we will celebrate this landmark moment in the company’s history with a remarkable new collection of plays that speak directly to our world today. 37 Plays represents the most ambitious, public writing project in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s history.
‘Working very closely with our resilient partner theatres up and down the country we will set out to encourage everyone to find their voice. Shakespeare offers us such an amazing array of plots and characters and with this 37 Plays I have no doubt we will unearth an equally rich kaleidoscope of stories; comedies, tragedies, untold histories, from the fantastical to the startlingly familiar, we will celebrate new voices for different dramatic platforms whether that's on our stages, on our streets, in schools, online or in new locations and spaces we haven't explored yet.’
Pippa Hill, Head of New Work at the Royal Shakespeare Company added:
“37 Plays is a project like no other. It’s not only the first time The RSC has invited submissions of unsolicited scripts, but we’re also opening the opportunity to writers of any experience and of any age – from established professionals to first time writers. Last year we created an array of resources to support writers in their process - including our podcast series with Mark Ravenhill, filmed masterclasses with playwrights in front of live audiences, teacher resource packs and workshops in schools.
Our ambition is to collect stories from all over the country that reflect our lives and our nation today. We have recruited a brilliant and diverse team of professional readers who will read all submissions and work with us to create the shortlist. These readers, and the final judging panel, will be looking for the ideas at the heart of each play; the original stories and voices that are not necessarily bound by traditional playwriting forms or conventions.
Once the new 37 plays have been selected, we will work with our regional theatre partners to hold performances of each play and we will capture them all in a new digital folio for our times.”
Submitted plays will be read by a national panel of 25 readers, selected by the RSC’s theatre partners to reflect the nation in all of its diversity. RSC theatre partners include: The Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, The Grand Theatre Blackpool, Hull Truck Theatre, Hall for Cornwall, Intermission Youth Theatre, The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, Northern Stage, Norwich Theatre, Nottingham Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall, The New Vic Theatre, Stoke, Silhouette Youth Theatre and York Theatre Royal.
How To Enter
37 Plays is open to anyone in the UK who wants to submit a play with the simple brief of creating a piece of drama that can make people laugh, smile, cry or think.
The project 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 divide into three age categories of up to 11 years old, 12 to 17 years old and 18 years old and above. Multi-authored plays may nominate a lead writer or average age of writers.
Submitted plays must be predominantly written in English, or in British Sign Language, with a translation provided for any text not in English language*. Entries must not be less than one A4 page and cannot be more than a hundred A4 pages. Plays must be a complete original story, not a sample of a story or an adaptation of a story. Submitted plays must not have had a professional production or be under commission at the time of submission.
* For Makaton users, plays can be submitted in Communication Print with a written English translation to accompany. The RSC welcomes BSL entries and does not require a translation to be provided.
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 Writer’s 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
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 RSCs 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
