The Mercury Theatre in Colchester will once again nurture and grow the very best writing talent from the East of England in their exciting new playwriting development programme.
Over the next 9 months, Mercury Playwrights will be guided and mentored them mentored through the process of creating their own full-length play or piece of theatre.

Participants will meet once a month from July 2022 through to March 2023. These monthly sessions will be led by award-winning writer Kenny Emson and will take writers through a two-draft process with one-to-one dramaturgy support.

Throughout the programme, Kenny will also be joined by an exciting list of guest writers.

The Mercury are looking for fresh new voices, writers who are bold, ambitious and theatrically daring. To ensure they tell the most dynamic and varied stories, they are particularly keen to hear from writers who are underrepresented in this industry whether this be by class, disability, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.

Criteria 

• Applicants must be aged 18 or over.
• Submissions must be no longer than 5 pages.
• Submissions should be written in a legible font or typeface and attached to email as PDF or Word Document files only.
• They can only accept one script per writer.
• They can only accept original work.
• Name and contact details should appear on the title page only (this ensures your anonymity during the reading process)
• Applicants must be from or currently reside in the East of England. East of England includes Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
• The Mercury will formally acknowledge all script submissions.
• All scripts will be read in full by the Mercury and an assembled panel of readers.
• All submissions will be given due consideration, but, regretfully, they cannot provide feedback on every script.

DEADLINE

30 Jun 2022

All applicants will be notified by 15 Jul 2022

Selected Mercury Playwrights will attend monthly in-person/online sessions that will be organised in keeping with the latest government guidelines.

All nine workshops will be held at the Mercury Theatre on:
– Tue 26 Jul 7 -9pm
– Tue 9 Aug 7-9pm
– Tue 6 Sep 7-9pm
– Tue 4 Oct 7-9pm
– Tue 1 Nov 7-9pm
– Tue 6 Dec 7-9pm
– Tue 10 Jan 2023 7-9pm
– Tue 7 Feb 2023 7-9pm
– Tue 7 Mar 2023 7-9pm

Playwrights Development Programme