Taking place on Saturday 7 March 2026 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Tour the Writer Festival is a one-day celebration of new writing, and an exploration of its future, with writers across the country.
The festival is the culmination of Tour the Writer, a three-year project led by Paines Plough with seven organisations across the country, with the shared aim to develop and support the writing networks in their respective areas.
The partner organisations are:
- Belgrade Theatre in Coventry
- Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture (in collaboration with Freedom Studios, Bradford Producing Hub and The Upsetters)
- Landmark Theatres in North Devon and Peterborough
- Mercury Theatre Colchester
- Theatre by the Lake in Cumbria
- Theatre Royal Plymouth
There will be events running throughout the day at the Belgrade, including:
- an opening ‘in conversation’ with playwright Simon Stephens
- design and dramaturgy workshops by award winning designers Milla Clarke and Rosie Elnile
- ‘How A Play Becomes a PLAY: Text Into Performance’ workshops, delivered by Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough Katie Posner and dramaturg Gurnesha Bola.
- A panel discussion about the future of new writing and touring, with Corey Campbell (Artistic Director of Belgrade Theatre), Madeleine Kludje (Associate Director at Birmingham Rep), Somebody Jones (Writer), Gillian Greer (Associate Dramaturg at the Royal Court), chaired by Katie Posner with further panelists to be announced.
Alongside these events, there will be scratch performance extracts of the fourteen scripts which have been developed during the third year of the programme. The extracts will be directed by Katie Posner, Jay Zorenti-Nakhid, and Josh Parr. The mentored writers are:
- Dan Loops and Jan Ruppe (from Bradford)
- Emma Bernard and Ben SantaMaria (from Colchester)
- Sara Amanda and Matthew Gabrielli (from Coventry)
- Sophia Atcha and Rachel Price (from Cumbria)
- Jessy Roberts and Emily Swettenham (from Peterborough)
- Kayleigh Mai Hinsley and Selina Keedwell (from North Devon)
- Jon Nash and Jane Spurr (from Plymouth).
Tickets for the Tour the Writer Festival are on sale on the Belgrade’s website here.
Tour the Writer is a multi-year writer development programme established by Paines Plough with seven partner organisations in 2023. The aim was to create a nationwide network of writers, offering one-to-one support, masterclasses and script dramaturgy to connect with budding playwrights around the UK. Since then, the programme has engaged with over 350 writers, delivered workshops and masterclasses to 1300 total participants, mentored 72 writers in the second year, and 14 in the third year. Mentored writers have gone on to further readings at Camden People’s Theatre, Theatre by the Lake in Cumbria, Mercury Theatre, as well as a full production at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester for Tassa Deparis’s Swallow the Lake in October 2025, which Deparis had been developing on the programme.