Archive for November, 2021

Sorry, You’re Not a Winner by Samuel Bailey – Touring the UK in 2022

Posted on: November 29th, 2021 by ppEditor

In 2022 we’re collaborating with Theatre Royal Plymouth to produce a UK tour of Samuel Bailey’s latest play Sorry, You’re Not a Winner. The play tells the story of Liam and Fletch, two friends who’ve reached a crossroad in their friendship as their lives take them in different directions. 

The show opens at Theatre Royal Plymouth on 24 February and will run until 12 March, it then tours to Bristol Old Vic (29 March – 2 April) and then to Northern Stage, Newcastle (5 – 9 April). Tickets for all venues are now on sale and more information for each venue can be found via the links below.

Sorry, You’re not a Winner is a Paines Plough and Theatre Royal Plymouth production in association with University of Plymouth, School of Society and Culture. Full cast and creative team details will follow in the upcoming months, so keep an eye out on our website and social media channels for updates.

About Sorry, You’re Not a Winner:
Liam and Fletch grew up together. Born on the same street. Best mates since primary. Inseparable. The only difference was while Fletch was getting suspended from school, Liam was studying. And now he’s going to Oxford. But with Liam gone, who’s going to keep Fletch out of trouble? 

A striking new play from Samuel Bailey, whose debut play Shook won him the 2019 Papatango Prize and Times Breakthrough Award in 2021, Sorry, you’re not a winner is a play about aspiration, social mobility and getting caught between class. It asks; if ‘making it’ means leaving everything you know and everyone you love behind – what’s the point?

About Samuel Bailey:
Samuel Bailey is a writer born in London and raised in the West Midlands. His play Shook won the Papatango Prize in 2019. After a sold-out run at the Southwark Playhouse, Papatango created a digital version of the play in collaboration with James Bobin. The film was a NY Times Critic’s Pick and won Samuel the Times Breakthrough Award at the South Bank Show Sky Arts Awards. Previously, Samuel has been part of Old Vic 12, the Orange Tree Writer’s Collective and a recipient of an MGCFutures bursary. 

UK tour dates:
Theatre Royal Plymouth
24 Feb – 12 Mar 2022

Bristol Old Vic
29 Mar – 2 Apr 2022

Northern Stage, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
5 – 9 Apr 2022

Shortlist announced for the 2021 Women’s Prize for Playwriting

Posted on: November 25th, 2021 by ppEditor

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, produced by Ellie Keel and Paines Plough, with Principal Partner 45North and in association with Sonia Friedman Productions today announce the 30 shortlisted scripts for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2021, selected from 850 entries. The Prize is designed to celebrate and support exceptional playwrights who identify as female by providing them with a national platform. The Prize is for a full-length play (defined as over 60 minutes in length), written in English, and the winning playwright wins £12,000. The Prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, who are the official publishing partner of the prize. The founding sponsor of the Prize was PER People

In its inaugural year two First Prizes of £12,000 were awarded. Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me by Amy Trigg premiered at Kiln Theatre to critical acclaim in May 2021, directed by Charlotte Bennett. An audio version was produced by Audible the following month. You Bury Me by Ahlam, directed by Katie Posner, had a staged reading at the Lyceum Theatre in August as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Ellie Keel, Founder Director of The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, today said, “The process of whittling down this year’s longlist to the shortlist was incredibly hard because of the exceptional quality of the work submitted to the prize this year. We feel extremely privileged to have read ambitious and accomplished plays on an extraordinarily vast range of subjects and themes, and we hope that the content of our longlist and shortlist will act as a powerful beacon of proof that theatre programming should strive to be more bold and brave – both in terms of the writers it puts faith in, and the subject matter it elevates. I’m thrilled for the shortlisted writers and look forward to championing their plays.”

Katie Posner and Charlotte Bennett, joint Artistic Directors of Paines Plough, added, “This shortlist of writers is bursting with wit, joy and massive talent and we are continually honoured that we get the opportunity to sit with these writers’ words. They are wildly epic, clever, visual, poetic and explore big knotty ideas. There are so many plays about subjects we never see on stage and we have kept asking ourselves ‘why not?!’ It’s surreal to even comprehend how women have been prevented from storming our national main stages and these plays prove time and time again that this needs to change!”

The judges for this year’s Prize are Arifa Akbar, Mel Kenyon (Chair), Lucy Kirkwood, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Winsome Pinnock, Indhu Rubasingham, Jenny Sealey, Nina Steiger, Nicola Walker and Jodie Whittaker.

 

The 2021 Women’s Prize for Playwriting shortlist is:

MOUNTAIN WARFARE by Abi Zakarian

Little Sister Alice Flynn

Birdie by Alison Carr

Like.Share.Kill by Bella Enahoro

Awareness by Beth Westbrook

Foreign by Carmen Harris

YELLOW TEETH by Dina Nayeri

Of Silent Words by Diya Sengupta and Amy Brian

Time, Like the Sea by Georgia Bruce

A Bouffon Play About Hong Kong by Isabella Leung

FURIES by Isley Lynn

Consumed by Karis Kelly

Void by Laura Waldren

upright enuf by lydia luke

The Middle by Mandi Chivasa

And Tomorrow I’ll Dance With You by Méábh de Brún

Kissing by Miriam Battye

Dollars and Sense by Naomi Sumner

Sankofa by Nicole Acquah

Blessed Spirits by Nicole Joseph

Some of Us Exist in the Future by Nkenna Akunna

Decades by Paula B Stanic

SAMUEL TAKES A BREAK IN MALE DUNGEON NO. 5 AFTER A LONG BUT GENERALLY SUCCESSFUL DAY OF TOURS by Rhianna Kemi Ilube

A Woman Walks into a Bank by Roxy Cook

Rojava by Sharon Farrell

HOW I LEARNED TO SWIM by Somebody Jones

The Kilburn Muhammad Ali by Tam J Miller

Imposter Syndrome by Tolu Fagbayi

Ripe by Trudie Shutler

The Light Trail by Lydia Sabatini

The finalist plays will be announced in December. The winner(s) will be announced at a ceremony in London on Friday 4 February 2022.

Discover more about the Women’s Prize for Playwriting at: http://womensprizeforplaywriting.co.uk

 

Longlist announced for the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2021

Posted on: November 15th, 2021 by ppEditor

The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, produced by Ellie Keel and Paines Plough, with Principal Partner 45North and in association with Sonia Friedman Productions today announce the 62 longlisted scripts for The Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2021, selected from 850 entries. The Prize is designed to celebrate and support exceptional playwrights who identify as female by providing them with a national platform. The Prize is for a full-length play (defined as over 60 minutes in length), written in English, and the winning playwright wins £12,000. The Prize is sponsored by Samuel French Ltd, a Concord Theatricals company, who are the official publishing partner of the prize. The founding sponsor of the Prize was PER People.

In its inaugural year two First Prizes of £12,000 were awarded. Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me by Amy Trigg premiered at Kiln Theatre to critical acclaim in May 2021, directed by Charlotte Bennett. An audio version was produced by Audible the following month, ahead of a national tour in Autumn 2022. You Bury Me by Ahlam, directed by Katie Posner, had its première at the Lyceum Theatre in August as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Ellie Keel, Founder Director of The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, today said, “After an amazing first year of The Women’s Prize for Playwriting in which we were delighted to mount a full production of Amy Trigg’s Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me at Kiln Theatre, as well as the premiere of You Bury Me by Ahlam at the Edinburgh International Festival, I’m thrilled to have a second longlist bursting with quality, ambition and imagination. It’s going to be a difficult job to whittle down these 60 plays to a shortlist – they have in common the fact that they are rich in theatrical possibility and aren’t afraid to take on complex, confronting and important subject matter. I’m proud of every writer who submitted a play to The Women’s Prize for Playwriting in what has been an extraordinarily challenging year for the creative industries.”

Katie Posner and Charlotte Bennett, joint Artistic Directors of Paines Plough, added, “The last 18 months have been an overwhelming challenge for the theatre industry and for freelancers in particular and so we were astounded by the incredible quality of all the plays submitted to this year’s Women’s Prize for Playwriting. The creativity that has shone through despite a pandemic is nothing short of inspirational. We appreciate how hard it is to press ‘send’ on a play and share your words with strangers and it has been a true privilege to have read so many people’s work, which has once again shown that there is an abundance of amazing talent amongst female-identifying playwrights. We can’t wait to continue reading into the next stages of the prize.”

The judges for this year’s Prize are Arifa Akbar, Mel Kenyon (Chair), Lucy Kirkwood, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Winsome Pinnock, Indhu Rubasingham, Jenny Sealey, Nina Steiger, Nicola Walker and Jodie Whittaker.

The longlist in full is:

The shortlist will be announced on Thursday 25 November, followed by the finalist plays in December. The winner(s) will be announced at a ceremony in London on Friday 4 February 2022.

www.womensprizeforplaywriting.co.uk