The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting is a British competition for playwriting, the largest of its kind in Europe—in 2019 it received 2561 entries. Since its inception in 2005, more than 15,000 scripts have been entered, £304,000 has been awarded to 34 prize-winning writers, and 24 winning productions have been staged in 38 UK-wide venues. In 2015 the prize celebrated its 10th anniversary and is now recognised as a launch-pad for some of the country's most respected and produced playwrights. The Prize is awarded to scripts that are original and unperformed.^[1] The award is a joint venture between the property company Bruntwood and the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester the Prize is an opportunity for writers of any background and experience to enter unperformed plays to be judged by a panel of industry experts for a chance to win part of a prize fund totalling £40,000.

Each winner enters into a development process with the Royal Exchange Theatre in an endeavour to bring their work to production. There have been co-productions with Lyric Hammersmith, Live Theatre, Soho Theatre, Bush Theatre, Orange Tree Theatre, Sherman Theatre, High Tide and the Royal Court Theatre. Work has also gone on to be produced internationally from Australia, USA, Germany, France, to Canada and Sweden. In addition to a high proportion of winning and shortlisted plays being produced professionally, each of the top 100 plays receives individual feedback from the Royal Exchange Theatre’s creative team.

Its alumni include some the UK’s most respected playwrights such as Duncan Macmillan and Alistair McDowall.^[2]

The Bruntwood Prize is biennial.

Process

All plays are submitted anonymously^[3] to the competition and are read by an expert panel of readers appointed by the Royal Exchange Theatre. There is an extensive five-stage process to the reading before creating the shortlist. The final panel of readers, including key artistic staff from the Royal Exchange Theatre, compile a shortlist of 15 plays for the judges to consider. The judges receive the shortlist of scripts and appoint winners. The judging panel has no knowledge about the writers of each script and the writers are only revealed when the judging process is complete.

The readers as a cohort have a broad range of experiences and specialisms to try and give each submitted script the best chance.

The submitted scripts therefore go through a rigorous process to make it to the longlist and shortlist;

• Phase One – reading the first 30 pages to identify approximately 900 scripts of potential interest.
• Phase Two – a new set of readers reading the full script to identify the Top 250
• Phase Three – a new set of readers reading the full script to identify the Top 40 for discussion in Phase Four and the longlist of Top 100 scripts eligible for feedback within 2019.
• Phase Four – Script Meeting to discuss the Top 40 scripts and to decide on the Shortlist of scripts to be issued to the judges. This meeting is with core artistic staff at the Royal Exchange Theatre and external freelance directors.

As each script proceeds through the phases of reading it is addressed by a diverse team of readers. The Royal Exchange manages the reading process to ensure that each script is seen by readers with different ages, genders, work history, ethnicities and interests. The aim of the Prize is to find great plays in whatever shape or form they appear so the entry criteria are deliberately broad to allow first time writers and more experienced playwrights to be assessed on a level footing.

Of the 2019 readers, who chose to provided information;

• 15% Consider themselves disabled
• 41% are BAME
• 65% are female and 3% are non-binary
• 28% are LGBTA+
• They are aged from their early 20s to over 70 years old

The cohort of readers is made up of theatre professionals, skilled in reading scripts. They include directors, designers, dramaturges and literary managers at leading producing theatres, actors, national critics and theatre commentators and previous Bruntwood Prize winners (the only playwrights to read- as they are no longer eligible to enter the Prize)

Award categories

Since inception in 2015, multiple Awards have been given- including the overall Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting and the Judges Awards. As of 2019 the categories are:

• The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting-a first prize of £16,000 • A Judges' Awards of £8,000 • An Original New Voice Award of £8,000- available to playwrights who have not had full-length play professionally produced for 12 performances or more in a professional venue. All scripts entered by these playwrights are also eligible for the Bruntwood Prize, and Judges Award. • An International Award of £8,000- open to international playwrights invited to anonymously apply via named international partners: The BANFF Centre in Canada; Belvoir Theatre and Melbourne Theatre Company in Australia; Berkeley Rep and Playwrights Horizons in the USA.

As of 2017, the judges can also choose to award Commendations of £4,000 and a funded reading at a London Theatre venue.

Judges

The shortlisted scripts are judged by a prestigious panel of figures from across the arts industry. Until his death in 2019, Michael Oglesby CBE DL, founder of the Bruntwood Group and chairman of The Oglesby Charitable Trust participated in every Judging panel. Acting Artistic Directors of the Royal Exchange Theatre also participate in every panel.

Winners and nominees

Online resources

To support writers to create scripts for the stage, the Bruntwood Prize provides free to access resources on their website. These include; promoting opportunities and events for playwrights around the UK and Republic of Ireland, blogs and long-form articles from playwrights and stage writing tutorials. In 2015 they launch the a regular series of Livestream workshops hosted by leading playwrights. In 2019 the first 'Toolkit' series to take a writer through writing a play for the first time^[12]

References