Paines Plough has announced details of the Tour the Writer Festival, a one-day event celebrating new writing and exploring its future.
The festival will take place on Saturday 7 March 2026 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and forms the culmination of the three-year Tour the Writer programme.
Tour the Writer was led by Paines Plough in partnership with seven organisations across the UK to develop and support local writing networks.
The partner organisations are the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Landmark Theatres in North Devon and Peterborough, Mercury Theatre Colchester, Theatre by the Lake in Cumbria, Theatre Royal Plymouth, and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture in collaboration with Freedom Studios, Bradford Producing Hub and The Upsetters.
Events will run throughout the day, beginning with an opening in-conversation with playwright Simon Stephens.
The programme also includes design and dramaturgy workshops led by award-winning designers Milla Clarke and Rosie Elnile.
Additional workshops titled How A Play Becomes a PLAY: Text Into Performance will be delivered by Paines Plough Joint Artistic Director Katie Posner and dramaturg Gurnesha Bola.
A panel discussion will address the future of new writing and touring, featuring Corey Campbell, Madeleine Kludje, Somebody Jones and Gillian Greer, chaired by Katie Posner, with further panellists to be announced.
The festival will showcase scratch performance extracts from fourteen scripts developed during the third year of the programme.
The mentored writers are Dan Loops and Jan Ruppe, Emma Bernard and Ben SantaMaria, Sara Amanda and Matthew Gabrielli, Sophia Atcha and Rachel Price, Jessy Roberts and Emily Swettenham, Kayleigh Mai Hinsley and Selina Keedwell, and Jon Nash and Jane Spurr.
The extracts will be directed by Katie Posner, Jay Zorenti-Nakhid and Josh Parr.
Tour the Writer was established by Paines Plough in 2023 to create a nationwide network of writers through one-to-one support, masterclasses and script dramaturgy.
Since launching, the programme has engaged with more than 350 writers and delivered workshops and masterclasses to 1,300 participants.
Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough Katie Posner, and Deputy Artistic Director Debo Adebayo said: “It’s been such a pleasure to bring hundreds of writers together in these last 3 years, and see them grow and develop on their creative journeys. The project – which has seen us build an incredible community of writers – wouldn’t have been possible without the seven organisations who make up Tour the Writer.”
They added: “We can’t wait to put extracts of the 14 Year-3 writers on stage at the Belgrade, and to celebrate (and agitate) for new voices in theatres across the land.”
Jay Zorenti-Nakhid said: “Paines Plough’s Tour the Writer programme has genuinely impacted and how we think about supporting writers locally. It’s helped us offer more opportunities for local writers and supported our preferred approach of building longer-term relationships rooted in trust, rigour and ambition.”
“Having a national conversation embedded in our local context has been invaluable, and we’re incredibly excited to host the festival at the Belgrade as a way of celebrating writers at every stage of their journeys and placing Coventry firmly in the national new writing ecology.”
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
