Verity Bargate Award 2021 – Workshop
This autumn 2021 Soho Theatre is offering playwriting workshops to introduce new writers to their Verity Bargate Award (for over 18s). The online workshops are timed to provide writers with the best opportunity to submit their new play for the Verity Bargate Award 2021.
Date: Wednesday 27th October
Time: 6-9pm
To book your place, please send an expression of interest of 200 words outlining your writing experience to rebeccamairs@lyrictheatre.co.uk by noon on Wednesday 20th October.
Workshop spaces are limited to a maximum of 30 places and will be offered on a first come, first served basis.
Eligibility Criteria: this workshop is for writers with fewer than three professional production credits.
The workshop introduces new writers from around the UK and Ireland to Soho Theatre, providing information about the scope of our programme, our three theatre spaces and what storytelling and theatricality means to us. Writers will learn about the Verity Bargate Award: what is it like reading for a competition; what Soho Theatre looks for; what are some of the best ways to catch a reader’s eye among 2000 scripts. It will also provide an opportunity for writers to think about form and content - how they speak to each other and how metaphor bolsters that relationship. Finally it will seek to address what radical storytelling is. How do you tap into those stories and ideas that genuinely change the way audiences look at the world?
Verity Bargate Award 2021: All That Matters Is Great Stories Are Told
-Soho Theatre’s search for extraordinary new stories
-Submissions window open 20 Oct – 21 Jan
-Winner announced in Summer 2022
-Judges including Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, Theresa Ikoko, James Graham and April de Angelis
WHAT IS THE VERITY BARGATE AWARD?
The search is on. Soho Theatre and Character 7, producer of The Night Manager and The Undoing, are looking for extraordinary plays from extraordinary new voices. The Verity Bargate Award is Soho Theatre’s flagship new-writing award with the winning play produced in a full production on our stages.
It doesn’t matter how old you are, where you’re from or what you do. If you’ve never written before, that’s fine by us. What matters is that great stories are told – human, inspiring and urgent stories which can only exist in this moment.
For nearly 40 years, The Verity Bargate Award has championed new writing. Since 1982m Soho Theatre’s playwriting award has uncovered the best new and emerging writers. It has launched the careers of some of Britain’s most established playwrights and screenwriters including Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies), Vicky Jones (Touch at Soho Theatre), Toby Whithouse (Doctor Who) and many, many more. Most recently, the Award celebrated Amanda Wilkin’s debut play Shedding A Skin with a sell out run at Soho Theatre in June 2021.
WHAT’S ON OFFER?
The winner receives £7,500 in respect of an exclusive option for Soho Theatre to produce the play.
AM I ELIGIBLE?
The Verity Bargate Award is open to any playwright who has had fewer than three professional productions and who lives in the UK or Ireland. There are no restrictions on subject matter. Musicals and other forms of theatre are welcome but will only be judged on the text that is submitted.
HOW DO I APPLY?
- Applicants must submit one unproduced, unpublished full-length play (no shorter than 60 minutes).
- The Submission Window will be available on Soho Theatre’s website between 20 October 2021 and 21 January 2022.