The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Theatre Partners announce the Judging panel for the nationwide playwriting competition 37 Plays: an ambitious and ground-breaking new initiative open to anybody from anywhere in the UK.
More than 2,000+ plays were submitted and have been read by a panel of 24 readers recruited from across the UK.
Acting Artistic Director of the RSC, Erica Whyman, will chair a panel of 10 judges. The full panel includes theatre-maker and Associate Director of The Unicorn Theatre Rachel Bagshaw, actor and RSC Associate Artist Ray Fearon, Theatre Critic and Associate Editor of The Stage Lyn Gardner, Best-selling author Sharna Jackson, 2018 Ian Charleson Award-winner Bally Gill, award-winning playwrights Mark Ravenhill and Juliet Gilkes Romero and actor/writer and Associate Artist David Threlfall.
They will be joined by Harry and Ella from the RSC’s Youth Advisory Board, which was established in 2019 to reflect the diverse voices of young people from across the UK. The Youth Advisory Board consists of 26 young people from the RSC’s Associate Schools programme who believe passionately in why the arts matter and are active champions of theatre and the arts within their communities.
The final 37 Plays will be announced on Thursday 18 May 2023.
Erica Whyman, RSC Acting Artistic Director and Chair of the 37 Plays judging panel, said; “I’m so thrilled to be working with this amazing array of judges, who bring such a range of artistic expertise to the task of putting together an unforgettable collection of plays.
“We have all been blown away by the calibre and genuine diversity of our 68-strong shortlist. There are intriguing and exhilarating plays from every region of the UK, from every age group and representing a wide range of backgrounds and life experience. A notable number of the plays tell stories we have not seen on our stages before. There are flights of wild imagination, tragedies, histories, experiments in form and delightful comedies – everything that makes it possible to survive hardship and thrive in changing times. It is going to be a painful process of selection in these final stages!
“It matters very much in a world of sometimes ferocious division or hasty judgment, that we curate a Folio that gives meaningful insight into how life is really lived in the UK today. To have invited so many first-time writers, from the very young to some very wise elders, to stand beside established professionals is a significant expression of how much creativity lurks on these islands. We look forward, with our Associate Theatre Partners, to staging readings of all 37 Plays this autumn so that we can offer up these plays for future production in theatres, schools and communities everywhere”.
37 Plays is led by the RSC and its network of 12 regional Theatre Partners and seeks to capture and write the stories of today.
The nationwide search for plays closed on 31 January 2023, attracting 2,000+ submissions from across the UK. Over a six-week period, 24 readers read 31 plays per week to create an initial longlist of 350 plays. From the longlist, a total of 70 plays have been shortlisted for commendation.
Of the 2,000+ submissions received in total:
- 90% of entries were submitted by writers aged 18+, 7% by writers aged 11-17 and 3% by writers aged under 11.
- The largest number of entries came from Greater London at 558, followed by the South-East of England at 270 and the North West of England at 197. The full geographical breakdown of entries was as follows: East Midlands (136), East of England (131), Jersey (2), North-East (35), North West (197), Northern Ireland (19), Scotland (88), South East (270), South West (188), Wales (77), West Midlands (188) and Yorkshire and Humberside (158).
- 6% of the total number of submissions received involved working with one of the RSC’s Associate Partner Theatre and, of those 113, 76 entries involved working with an RSC Associate School.
- 16% of total entrants came from C2DE households.
- Of the total number of entries, 78% of applicants identified as white, 6% as Mixed Heritage, 3% as Black, 3% as Asian, 2% as Other (with a further 7% preferring not to say).
- Having been asked to rate their playwriting experience level from 1-10 at the point of submission (level 1 = never written a play before to 10 = very experienced playwright), 22% of applicants identified as first-time writers.
37 Plays 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 were divided into three age categories of up to 11 years old, 11 to 17 years old and 18 years old and above. Multi-authored plays were invited to nominate a lead writer or average age of writers.
Submissions were requested to be predominantly written in English, or in British Sign Language, with a translation provided for any text not in English language*. Submissions should be a complete original story, not a sample of a story or an adaptation of a story and submitted plays must not have had a professional production or be under commission at the time of submission.
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 Writers’ Guild of Great Britain.
Full details of Terms and Conditions of entry and associated FAQs can be accessed via 37plays.co.uk
