The Fence, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United Kingdom, and Dutch Performing Arts are together collaborating on Boom! a new project that explores the shared heritage of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, while looking to the future. A diverse group of two UK and two Dutch playwrights will meet together, to encounter each other, learn about their shared colonial history and begin to explore what might be interesting to each of them to write about.

They invite four playwrights from the UK and the Netherlands for a three-day meeting in the Netherlands in early December, which will open up a space for them to think and write. The playwrights will then spend December and January writing their own plays, with translation and then dramaturgical work on material submitted taking place in February, with rewrites in March.

The outcome will be an afternoon of staged readings in London for 20-minute pieces in April 2020. These will be either short plays or extracts from longer works as a work-in-progress.

English will be the working language, but the Dutch playwrights will write in Dutch.

Each of the four playwrights will receive:
• an honorarium of £1,500 towards their writing time;
• visiting train travel between UK – Netherlands and visiting accommodation in UK or Netherlands;
• staged readings of final drafts in London;
• translation and dramaturgical support.

How to apply

This call is open to working playwrights (with at least two professional productions) who connect to the shared heritage of the UK and the Netherlands: their colonial histories and the challenges we face ahead as Britain attempts to leave the European Union.

Please provide on a single page of A4:
• your biography;
• your proposal for what you would like to explore with this playwrighting opportunity;
• whether you have any disabled access requirements.

Deadline:

Monday 28th October 2019.

Selected playwrights must be able to be present and deliver within the dates as the project’s organisation is time sensitive. Applications must be written in English and submitted to jonathanmeth123@btinternet.com.