We are a partner in The Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) 37 Plays, alongside 11 other regional theatres. The ambitious and ground-breaking new playwriting project, open to anybody from anywhere in the UK, has launched today.
37 Plays seeks to capture and write the stories of our nation. It is open to children, young people and adults, including established, emerging and first-time writers.
Despite being a nationwide search, Norfolk residents will be supported by Norwich Theatre with playwriting advice and prompts given to those writing a play throughout 2022.
Submissions for 37 Plays will open on 1 January 2023 and close on 31 January 2023. Submitted plays will be read by a national panel selected by the RSC’s network of Regional Theatres.
The chosen 37 plays will be announced in April 2023 and will be performed script-in-hand across the UK and online in autumn 2023.
Sam Patel, Head of Creative Engagement at Norwich Theatre, said: “This is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to share their creativity with the potential of bringing their play to life. Norwich Theatre will be working closely with communities in Norfolk to hear and share their untold stories and experiences.”
Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of the RSC, said: “37 Plays represents the most ambitious, public writing project in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s history. After these last two years, we all have a story to tell, and what better way to have those stories come to life than write them for performance. Working very closely with our resilient partner theatres up and down the country, we will set out to encourage everyone to find their voice. Shakespeare offers us such an amazing array of plots and characters, and with this 37 Plays, I have no doubt we will unearth an equally rich kaleidoscope of stories; comedies, tragedies, untold histories, from the fantastical to the startlingly familiar, we will celebrate new voices for different dramatic platforms whether that’s on our stages, on our streets, in schools, online or in new locations and spaces we haven’t explored yet”.
How To Enter
37 Plays is open to anyone in the UK who wants to submit a play with the simple brief of creating a piece of drama that can make people laugh, smile, cry or think. The project will explore who we are as a society and inspire conversation about what the future of dramatic writing might look and feel like, on and off our stages.
Play submissions divide into three age categories of up to 11 years old, 12 to 17 years old and 18 years old and above. Multi-authored plays may nominate a lead writer or average age of writers.
Submitted plays must be predominantly written in English, or in British Sign Language, with a translation provided for any text, not in English language*. Entries must not be less than one A4 page and cannot be more than a hundred A4 pages.
Plays must be a complete original story, not a sample of a story or an adaptation of a story. Submitted plays must not have had a professional production or be under commission at the time of submission.
*For Makaton users, plays can be submitted in Communication Print with a written English translation to accompany. The RSC welcomes BSL entries and does not require a translation to be provided.
All of the 37 plays selected will be awarded a fee for publication, performance and/or broadcast. Any submission subsequently commissioned for production will be subject to usual commission processes approved by the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain.
Full details of Terms and Conditions of entry and associated FAQs can be accessed via 37plays.co.uk
This ambitious endeavour is supported by award-winning playwrights Juliet Gilkes Romero (pictured above) and Mark Ravenhill as ambassadors and senior consultants on this project.