For the first time in our eleven year history, the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting can announce the shortlisted playwrights! This year the Bruntwood Prize Judges decided upon a winner anonymously on Monday 23rd October.
The 2017 winning scripts will be announced at an award ceremony hosted by BBC news presenter Naga Munchetty on the 13 November at the Royal Exchange Theatre and livestreamed to this site.
The ten shortlisted scripts were selected from 1,898 original plays that were submitted to the Prize this year. Each playwright enters their play under a pseudonym, with the aim of creating an equal opportunity for writers of any background and experience to enter and have only their words come under consideration.
In the run up to the Nov 13th ceremony we’re profiling all the shortlisted writers and their plays further here The award ceremony will also feature a longer filmed interview with each playwright on their work and a extract directed by Bryony Shanahan.
The 2017 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting Shortlist:
A Bit of Light
British actor, Rebecca Callard is best known for her roles in television shows Fearless (2017), Ordinary Lies (2015) and Detectorists (2014). A Bit Of Light is her first play.
A Place for We
Archie Maddocks is a stand-up comedian and writer whose previous plays have been produced by the Bush Theatre, Royal Court and Lyric Hammersmith. A Place for We was shortlisted for the 2017 Alfred Fagon Award under it’s previous title of Nine Nights.
Electric Rosary
Manchester-based Tim Foley is an Associate Artist at Pentabus Theatre.
Heartworm
Timothy X Atack is an award-winning writer, composer and sound designer who founded the multidisciplinary
artist collective, Sleepdogs.
King Brown
Laurie Nunn is an established film and television writer and her feature film script, The Summer House is currently in development. King Brown is her first play.
Oh Graveyard, You Can’t Hold Me Always
AKA The Gothic Castle of Capitalism
Glasgow-based writer, director and translator, Alan McKendrick has worked across film, theatre and opera. Oh Graveyard, You Can’t Hold Me Always was read under the title of The Gothic Castle of Capitalism to protect his anonymity.
Plow
AKA Over the Hill There’s Something Better
Sharon Clark is Creative Director of Bristol-based immersive theatre company, Raucous and a lecturer at Bath Spa University. Plow was read under the title of Over the Hill There’s Something Better to protect her anonymity as it was also shortlisted in this years Papatango New Writing Prize.
Pumpjack
Actor and founder of Snuff Box Theatre, Daniel Foxsmith trained at East 15 Acting School. In 2015 his play One Night Far From Here made the long-list for the Bruntwood Prize and his play Weald received critical praise in 2016.
This is Not America
Writer and director, Joshua Val Martin is based in Manchester where he works as a tour guide. In 2015 he was long-listed for the Bruntwood Prize and his first film which responds to the tragic Orlando nightclub shootings, A Vocation (49 Scenarios for Gay Men), is currently in production.
when after or it was you and me (or the genocide play)
Kevin Doyle is a playwright and director based in Dublin.
2017 Judging Panel
– British broadcaster and journalist Kirsty Lang
– Award-winning screenwriter Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk, C4; Doctor Who, BBC)
– British Actor Alfred Enoch (Harry Potter; How To Get Away With Murder)
– Previous Bruntwood Prize winner Phil Porter (The Miser, West End; Vice Versa, RSC; The
Cracks in my Skin, Royal Exchange Theatre)
– Stage and screen writer Lucy Prebble (The Effect, National Theatre; Enron, Royal Court,
Chichester Festival Theatre, West End & Broadway)
– Director Lyndsey Turner (Hamlet, Barbican; Chimerica, Almeida; Posh, Royal Court & West
End and Associate Director of the National Theatre)
– Royal Exchange Theatre Associate Artistic Director, Matthew Xia
– Chairman of Bruntwood, Michael Oglesby CBE