The Papatango New Writing Prize, now in its fifteenth year, opens for submissions today, 6 December 2022, until 9pm on Sunday 5 February 2023.
The Papatango New Writing Prize was the UK’s first – and remains the only annual – opportunity guaranteeing a new writer a full production, publication by Nick Hern Books, royalties, and an award of £7000.
Judged anonymously over three reading rounds, every entrant receives feedback on their script – a commitment made by no other company. This constitutes an unrivalled investment in new writers as the Prize continues to draw more submissions on a yearly basis than any other playwriting award, attracting a record 1,553 entries in 2022.
The shortlist and winner will be announced by late summer 2023, after which the play will be developed with Papatango, ahead of a production in association with the Bush Theatre in spring 2024. The winning play will be premièred by Papatango on the main stage at the Bush Theatre, where 2020 winner Igor Memic’s Olivier Award-winning play Old Bridge also received its debut production in October 2021.
Continuing with the expansion of the Prize this year, four shortlisted writers will each receive £500 and a filmed reading broadcast for a global network on The Playwright’s Laboratory, with the aim of securing full productions and new opportunities.
Other writers produced under the Prize include Dawn King, Dominic Mitchell, Iman Qureshi, Samuel Bailey, Tom Morton-Smith, Fiona Doyle, Matt Grinter, Luke Owen, Louise Monaghan, James Rushbrooke, Tajinder Singh Hayer, Tom Powell, Jaki McCarrick, Clive Judd and Nkenna Akunna. Igor Memic – the winner of the 2020 Papatango New Writing Prize for Old Bridge – went on to win the Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright and the OffWestEnd Award for Most Promising Playwright, while this year’s winner Clive Judd is currently a nominee for the OffWestEnd Award for Most Promising Playwright. Collectively, writers launched through the Prize have won Olivier, BAFTAs, Critics’ Circle, The Times Breakthrough, OffWestEnd and RNT Foundation Awards, been nominated for the James Tait Black Drama Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, premièred in over thirty countries worldwide, and gone on to work with many leading companies as well as in the West End.
Artistic Director of Papatango, George Turvey, said today, “We are proud to launch the 15th Prize, in what is undoubtedly one of the toughest periods emerging playwrights have faced since we first opened in 2009. With funding vanishing, audiences stretched, and programming changing fast, the need for writers to be supported and showcased on the most exciting platforms is more pressing now than ever. This Prize is not just a beacon for new talent and new stories, it is a call to action.”
2022 winner Clive Judd describes his experience, “The team at Papatango has taken my play and my writing to a place I wasn’t even aware I had the ability to go. Their care for the development of your work, and you as a writer, is invaluable and the journey your play goes on truly, truly thrilling. I am thirty-six years old. This is my first play. There is never a right or wrong time in life to begin writing. And now might just be the best time for you to share it.”
All entries must be anonymous, have a running time of at least 60 minutes, be original and previously unproduced, and sent in Microsoft Word or PDF formats with a contact telephone number on the front page. Entries should be made by 9pm, Sunday 5 February 2023, via the online submission form on Papatango’s website. Full details are available at www.papatango.co.uk.
Further information on the winning show and listings will be announced in summer 2023.
