37 Plays: ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY ANNOUNCES NATIONWIDE PLAYWRIGHTING PROJECT

As the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) looks ahead to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2023, the Company today announced the launch of 37 Plays: an ambitious and ground-breaking new playwriting project open to anybody from anywhere in the UK.  

The nationwide search launched today with a new website 37plays.co.uk, offers playwriting support and advice to those who are writing a play throughout 2022.  

37 Plays is led by the RSC and its network of 12 regional theatre partners, including York Theatre Royal, and seeks to capture and write the stories of our nation. It is open to children, young people and adults, including established, emerging and first-time writers.

York Theatre Royal will be offering opportunities for all ages across our community in 2022 to engage with playwriting, to find their voice and to tell their stories. Further details will be released over the coming weeks of how to access these opportunities.

Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of the RSC said:  

“37 Plays represents the most ambitious, public writing project in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s history. After these last two years, we all have a story to tell, and what better way to have those stories come to life than write them for performance. Working very closely with our resilient partner theatres up and down the country we will set out to encourage everyone to find their voice. Shakespeare offers us such an amazing array of plots and characters and with this 37 Plays I have no doubt we will unearth an equally rich kaleidoscope of stories; comedies, tragedies, untold histories, from the fantastical to the startlingly familiar, we will celebrate new voices for different dramatic platforms whether that’s on our stages, on our streets, in schools, online or in new locations and spaces we haven’t explored yet.”  

“As we look forward to 2023 and to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, we will celebrate this landmark moment in the company’s history with a remarkable new collection of plays that speak directly to our world today.” 

Submissions for 37 Plays will open on 1 January 2023 and close on 31 January 2023. Submitted plays will be read by a national panel selected by the RSC’s network of Regional Theatres: The Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, The Grand Theatre Blackpool, Hull Truck Theatre, Hall for Cornwall, Intermission Youth Theatre, The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, Northern Stage, Norwich Theatre, Nottingham Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall, The New Vic Theatre, Stoke, Silhouette Youth Theatre and York Theatre Royal.    

The chosen 37 plays will be announced in April 2023 and will be performed script-in-hand, across the UK and online in autumn 2023.  

This ambitious endeavour is supported by award-winning playwrights Juliet Gilkes Romero and Mark Ravenhill as ambassadors and senior consultants on this project. 

The website launches with a new podcast series hosted by Mark and featuring contributions from some of the most inspiring voices currently working in the UK.   

Taking inspiration from Mark’s acclaimed 101 Notes on Playwriting, published on Twitter throughout Spring 2021, each 15-minute episode will explore two playwrighting tips and will feature guest contributions from Lolita Chakrabarti, Danusia Samal, Chinonyerem Odimba, James Graham, Winsome Pinnock and Hannah Khalil.   

The first episode is now live with a further five episodes to be released throughout February and March 

Aspiring writers can also take advantage of a series of online video tutorials and an accompanying written resource pack to help them on their playwrighting journey.  

This includes a new film: ‘Finding Inspiration’ by 37 Plays Ambassador Juliet Gilkes-Romero, whose play The Whip won The Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play Of The Year in 2021 following its stage premiere in The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon in 2019.  

Mark Ravenhill and Juliet Gilkes-Romero, 37 Plays Ambassadors, added:  

“It’s been great talking to playwrights for the podcast – what got them started, how they work, the tips they want to pass on. I hope we inspire people to get writing”.

“In some ways this project will be an interesting time capsule reflecting how we respond to and shape current times. I’m certainly looking forward to hearing dynamic and diverse new voices as a result of this nationwide initiative.”

How To Enter 

From five-act plays to short-form monologues, plays performed on stage, in classrooms or on the streets, to untried and emerging formats, 37 Plays invites children, young people, and adults, including established and first-time writers to write the comedies, tragedies, and untold histories of our time.   

37 Plays is open to anyone in the UK who wants to submit a play with the simple brief of creating a piece of drama that can make people laugh, smile, cry or think. The project will explore who we are as a society and inspire conversation about what the future of dramatic writing might look and feel like, on and off our stages.  

Play submissions divide into three age categories of up to 11 years old, 12 to 17 years old and 18 years old and above.  Multi-authored plays may nominate a lead writer or average age of writers.   

Submitted plays must be predominantly written in English, or in British Sign Language, with a translation provided for any text not in English language*. Entries must not be less than one A4 page and cannot be more than a hundred A4 pages. Plays must be a complete original story, not a sample of a story or an adaptation of a story. Submitted plays must not have had a professional production or be under commission at the time of submission.    

*For Makaton users, plays can be submitted in Communication Print with a written English translation to accompany. The RSC welcomes BSL entries and does not require a translation to be provided.   

All of the 37 plays selected will be awarded a fee for publication, performance and/or broadcast. Any submission subsequently commissioned for production will be subject to usual commission processes approved by the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain.  

Full details of Terms and Conditions of entry and associated FAQs can be accessed via 37plays.co.uk