Announcing: the recipient of our 2025 Playwright Fellowship, Corey Weekes.
We first came across Corey at a reading of his play Quicksand at the Criterion, as part of the Adopt a Playwright award. It was a huge ambitious play about Alzheimer’s disease, with a knotty and fascinating central character, which got to the heart of how the disease can tear into families. We watched his writing come to life in a different form again later, through his weaving of lyrics into the Belgrade’s production of Romeo & Juliet.
So, we met with Corey to discuss what he wants to develop next as a writer, and we felt he was at the perfect crossroads in terms of his development to benefit from a longer-term attachment to Paines Plough, and take his craft onto its next step.
With us, Corey have some time and space to explore new ideas for a new play. He will receive a bursary, mentorship from our Artistic Directors, and will be part of our office and artistic team.
Find out more about Corey Weekes here.
Corey Weekes is a writer, actor, director and musician and has appeared in multiple theatre and TV productions, including Birmingham Rep’s Grimeboy, CAST Doncaster’s Miss Julie, and Netflix/BBC musical drama, Champion, which also featured his original music.
After being selected to participate in Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab, Corey’s debut show, Rapsody, co-written with Oli Dunbar, was the recipient of the Pleasance’s Charlie Hartill Theatre Reserve and had a month’s run at The Pleasance (Edinburgh). He then went on to win Off West End’s Adopt A Playwright Award 23/24.
That’s A Rap, a rap theatre company Corey co-founded are mid-national tour with their debut production, a musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Bristol Old Vic and Hackney Empire.
Corey is passionate about the main-staging of underrepresented voices and ensuring these stories are told by people with lived experience of their content.