The five winners of The Play Lottery, a short-form national playwriting contest, have been chosen at random.
The Play Lottery Scratch Night received submissions from 68 UK-based writers, all submitting short pieces of playwriting up to 10 minutes maximum in length. Five plays have been chosen totally at random, with the winners receiving £20, feedback from professional playwrights, and the pieces being staged at the PEN Theatre in London on 6 and 7 June.
The five winning short plays are North (South) by Tommy Pullen, Press to Exit by Steve Arber, Finish Line by Jacob Utzon Krefeld, Not Planning Ahead by Graham Bibby and Space League by Shaun Nolan.
Producer Jamie Rycroft explained: “In a way, all playwriting competitions in lotteries – depending on the tastes of the judges, there’s always brilliant work that goes totally under the radar. In selecting our five pieces for this scratch night at random, we’re giving everyone an equal shot at being staged.
“We have a wonderful range of work being performed, from intense dramatic two-hander to comedic monologue, in settings ranging from a bench by a clifftop to the racetrack of an ultramarathon.”
The Play Lottery ran a similar competition for playwrights based in the East of England in April at Colchester’s Mercury Theatre. The random nature of the play selection received a wide range of responses from notable playwrights, with Nick Ahad writing in the Guardian that it gives “playwrights another seat at the table” within a system that is not currently a meritocracy, while Roy Williams criticised that it “encourages the myth that anyone can write a play”.
“The reactions we received to the pilot event of the Play Lottery shows to me that something needs to change about the way in which plays are selected in this country,” Rycroft added. “I hope that with measures like this Scratch Night, we are doing our small part to shake up the new writing scene.”
“It’s looking like a really exciting night of new work and I hope that you’re able to come to see it.”
Tickets are on sale for the Play Lottery scratch night, running on the 6th and 7th June, at https://www.thepentheatre.com/play-lottery
