Submissions open for RSC’S nationwide playwriting project
Photo credit: Topher McGrillis
As the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) celebrates the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2023, the Company have 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 twelve 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 are now open and will close at 12noon on 31 January. Those wishing to submit a play can do so by clicking here.
Acting Artistic Director of the RSC, Erica Whyman, 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.”
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 here.