Paines Plough and our partners are excited to announce that Year 2 of the Tour the Writer programme will begin in April 2024.
Year 1 of the programme was called Meet the Writer, where we went across England to meet as many of you as possible in our local partner regions. Over the past year we’ve built up a network of over 500 writers that we hope will continue onto the second and third years of Tour the Writer.
Year 2 will be called Develop the Writer. We’ll look to guide every writer that we’ve worked with through a three draft process to create a new original piece of writing for stage. We will be holding an online Zoom masterclass every two months, setting assignments and deadlines, as well as having in-person feedback and social meetups where you and other writers can discuss your work. This Open Pathway is available to anyone that has engaged in the TTW programme to date.
Alongside that, we’re excited to announce that we will also work with 15 Mentored Writers in each region. Mentored Writers will receive additional support from Paines Plough and your local partner organisation to develop your play which includes written and in-person dramaturgical support.
Whether you’re on the Open Pathway or one of the Mentored Writers, the journey you’ll be going on will be the same. At the end of the year, we hope you’ll have a piece of writing which you can take with you into Year 3 to be developed further.
The Tour the Writer Year 2 mentored writers activity is generously supported by the Noel Coward Foundation.
If you would like to apply to be one of our Mentored Writers, we’re opening a short application process to anyone that has attended a Tour the Writer event previously.
We’d love for you to answer the following questions:
Please do answer those three questions in whichever way feels right for you.
We suggest one of the following:
Please also include a writing sample of up to three pages for scripts or 500 words if other forms of writing (such as prose or poetry).
We’re looking for anyone who wants to write a play for the stage. You don’t have to have written one before. You don’t have to know how to write one. You just need a desire to create something that is meaningful to you.
We’re hoping to work with creatives from a range of backgrounds. This includes playwrights, novelists, musicians, poets, spoken word artists, and more. We believe that any artist can create a powerful piece for stage.
You can submit any piece of creative writing that you think represents you and your voice. This includes the Come to Where I’m From monologues about home that may have been written if you attended one of our Open Writers Labs.
We also have a few exercises from the Labs at this link which you can use to write your own monologue if you’d like to create something new.
We stress that we don’t want anyone to feel pressure to create a new piece of writing to apply. If you have something already then send that in!
However, we acknowledge that some may have never written for stage before. If that’s you, give some of the exercises a try and see if you can create a monologue about home.
The deadline for applications has now been extended by a week, to 5pm on Monday 19 February 2024