Hope Mill Theatre is launching its first ever Playwriting Prize, with the finalists getting the opportunity of mentorship with award winning writer Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing, Hushabye Mountain).

Through the Mill is an exciting new opportunity for writers to have their work fully produced by and at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester. They hope that this will become an annual event in our calendar and will be a great way to support and encourage the future talent of theatre writing.

The winning writer will receive a monetary prize of £5,000

Criteria 

• The prize is open to all UK residing writers, age 16 years and over.
• The play must not have received any previous professional productions and must not be contracted or committed to any other venue, producer or creative team and should be available for production.
• The play must be an hour long or more in playing time and they do not accept unfinished scripts.
• They do not accept film or TV scripts or musicals or exclusively written for children
• The piece must be original; they do not accept adaptions or translations of established works.
• The writers must hold all copyright and other related rights to the piece

27th November 2020 – Deadline for submissions
End January 2021 – Shortlist announcement
February 2021 – Finalists announced
March 2021 – Finalists evening held at Hope Mill Theatre, with panel of judges and winning play chosen.

As part of the evening each finalist will have a scene from their play performed live, as well as a Q&A about the piece in front of an invited audience of industry leaders/professionals.

Autumn 2021 – Full production of the play at Hope Mill Theatre

Only the shortlisted writers will receive feedback on their piece.

The readers will be made up of industry professionals from Theatre, including directors, agents and theatre leaders.

The £5,000 Prize is a one off payment awarded to the winning writer. There will be a separate agreement regarding the producing of the play by Hope Mill Theatre, which will include a royalty payable to the writer.

Any future productions of this version will again include a re negotiation with the writers.

Hope Mill Theatre will be approved the rights to produce the winning play at the venue and will hold creative ownership of that individual production, marketing materials & imagery.

https://hopemilltheatre.co.uk/through-the-mill