ETPEP Award 2020

RESULTS

The Finborough Theatre today announces the winner for the ETPEP Award 2020. The winner is:

Julia Grogan for Playfight

Playwright Julia Grogan is 24, and grew up in Warwickshire. She trained as an actor at Rose Bruford College, graduating in 2018. Her acting work includes At Sea (BBC Radio 4), Belly Up (Vault Festival 2020) and Island Town (Catalyst Festival). While working behind the bar at the Royal Court Theatre, she was invited to join their Intro Writers’ Group and as a result wrote Playfight, her very first play.

The three of us. Get to the top and howl out. That’d be magic. Don’t you think?

Kiera, Zainab and Lucy are smart, outrageous and savvy. They’ve figured out that there are some things school sex ed lessons don’t cover. Now, as they grow from girls into womxn, they’re going to find the answers…
Informed by the rise in violence in mainstream pornography, Playfight interrogates the dangerous reality of hyper-sexualisation, experimentation and exploitation for womxn coming of age today. How we love, the pain we feel, the lengths we go to…

The final shortlist plays were as follows:
PLAYFIGHT by Julia Grogan
LET IT LIE by Adam Lawrence
TAHARA by Vanessa Schofield

The shortlisted plays were as follows:
PLAYFIGHT by Julia Grogan
LET IT LIE by Adam Lawrence
DOGHOUSE by Alice Malin
TAHARA by Vanessa Schofield
REASONS YOU SHOULD(N’T) LOVE ME by Amy Trigg

The longlisted plays were as follows:
All of these entries will receive a prize of £300.
NORMALCY by Bonnie Adair
MIXED FEELINGS by Ajjaz Awad-Ibrahim
THE LIBERTIES by Lawrence Quilty
THE TINKER by Olivia Foan
FROGGY by Sasha Frost
PLAYFIGHT by Julia Grogan
LABYRINTH DIET by Laura Horton
LET IT LIE by Adam Lawrence
DOGHOUSE by Alice Malin
TAHARA by Vanessa Schofield
REASONS YOU SHOULD(N’T) LOVE ME by Amy Trigg

The ETPEP Award 2020 is a playwriting prize for new UK playwrights who work in the theatre industry, run by the Finborough Theatre in association with the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust (ETPEP).

The Award’s purpose is to find and nurture a playwright who has worked in theatre for two years or more (but not in a literary department setting or as a paid script reader), who is looking to further their ambitions and skill in the art and craft of playwriting.

The ETPEP Award 2020 is open to UK residents of any age who have not had a play professionally produced, and who have worked front of house, in administrative roles, on stage, backstage, lighting, design etc. or in a creative capacity in theatre for at least two years, either now or in the past. 

The award is intended to target and encourage those who are currently working in theatre but who are new to playwriting, and therefore, the Award is not open to those who have worked in any capacity in a literary department, a literary agency, theatre critics, or those who ever have undertaken paid script reading work.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not an award for playwrights. It is an award for those who work in theatre IN SOME OTHER capacity who also write plays.

We are looking for a play of substance which contributes in some way to our understanding of the human condition or experience, from a writer with potential to enhance our political and social awareness.

The award will be judged completely anonymously until the very final shortlist and interview stage, and brief feedback will be provided on every entry.

The winner will receive a prize of £6,000, a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre including one-to-one dramaturgy with Finborough Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Neil McPherson; a rehearsal workshop with actors and a director to develop the play; and a staged reading performance of the winning play at the Finborough Theatre, London on Sunday, 20 September 2020 (subject to confirmation, depending on events).

There will be ten runner-up prizes of £300 each.

The judges for the 2020 Award are playwright Winsome Pinnock; Artistic Director of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Neil McPherson; Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Sue Healy; actor Oliver Ford Davies; actor, playwright and activist Athena Stevens; and Clive Webster of the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust, which founded the award.

Before entering you should study the full submission guidelines, available at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

The deadline for scripts is Tuesday, 30 June 2020 at 11.00pm.

Please click on ETPEP Award 2020 Submission Information below for full information on how to submit.