Playwrighting Prize for Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley

The Royal Exchange Theatre Leigh Ambassadors are inviting anyone who lives or has a connection to Leigh, Atherton or Tydesley to enter our second annual playwrighting competition LocalTALE.

Write an orginal 10-30 minute play and be in with the chance to have your work produced and performed in the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Den at Spinners Mill in Summer 2021.

Plays should use the image below as their starting point for writing, inspired by the question ‘How was 2020 for you?’. This isn’t just about the big moments of the year, it’s about everything inbetween and how life did more than just carry on. 

Rules

• LocalTALE is open to anyone who lives or has a connection to Leigh, Atherton or Tyldesley. We are afraid that no other submissions can be considered at this time.
• There is no lowest or upper age limit for entrants
• We can only accept one entry per person (if you send more than one, we will read the first one you submit)
• The play must be an orginal, unperformed and unproduced piece of work.
• We cannot accept musicals, work specifically for younger audiences, prose writing, radio pieces or screenplays.
• The play must be a minimum of 10 minutes in length and a maximum of 30 minutes in length
• While the play can have any number of characters, the script must be written for a maximum of two performers.
• The entrant must exclusively own and control all copyright and all other related rights to the submitted script.
• The submitted play must be available for production and unattached to any other theatre or company. Any scripts that have been professionally optioned, produced or published will be disqualified.
• We do accept plays co-authored by more than one writer. Please ensure that only one entry is submitted with one set of contact details.

Judging 

We will judge each script anonymously, without knowing the writers name. To help us do this please ensure all contact details or identifying details are removed from the script attachment.

The judges, made up of Leigh Ambassadors and Royal Exchange Theatre staff, will read all the entries, and judge the winners by the following criteria:

• Does it meet the competition rules & eligibility
• Does it respond to the image?
• Does it have dialogue that is speakable and that carries and individual voice for each character?
• Is it a story that takes its characters and the audience on a journey?
• Would I want to watch this in the Den in Summer 2021 in Leigh.

We regret that no correspondence can be entered into regarding any part of the judging process. Due to the volume of applications, we also cannot feedback to unsuccessful candidates.

There will be four winning plays which will all be produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre as part of the Den at Spinners Mill in Summer 2021. All winning writers will recieve support from Dramaturg Suzanne Bell to develop their play for performance.

Workshops and Resources

You don’t need to have ever written a play before but if you want some extra help please download our resource pack or come along to a freeworkshop with the Royal Exchange Theatre Dramaturg Suzanne Bell.

Workshops will be taking place over zoom.

Workshop One: 22nd February 2021 6-8pm

Workshop Two: 27th February 2021 2-4pm

To book a place, please click here.

Download the resource pack here.

Deadline 

Monday 12th April 2021

Submit your play here.