BigVillage Fringe Show Competition calls for entries from playwrights
Competition judge Jim McSharry
The Edinburgh Fringe has been the starting point for many of the UK’s most innovative playwrights. Getting a spot at the festival isn’t easy, however talented you are, which is why BigVillage Theatre Company has launched an exciting new competition for aspiring playwrights.
Following the success of their writing competitions in 2005 and 2007, the Edinburgh-based group is now offering writers the chance to win a full-scale production of their play at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010.
The winning script will be performed in a six- or seven-night run at an established central Edinburgh venue in August 2010. If you are the winning playwright you’ll be invited to attend rehearsals and watch the actors transform your words into a living, breathing entity.
To make sure you get to fully experience your new status as a professional playwright you’ll also receive two complimentary tickets to each performance.
Plays will be judged anonymously by three professional writers: Lorraine McCann, Alistair Rutherford and Jim McSharry, the latter of whom began his writing career as a performance poet in the 1980s and was published in anthologies of radical poetry before becoming part of the first inclusive mainstream theatre in Europe. More recently he has become involved in many initiatives both in the arts and social sectors, including Creative Scotland.
“The possibility of having your play produced and directed for the Edinburgh Fringe offers a writer the chance of exposure you can’t buy or, if you could, it wouldn’t come cheap!” Jim says. “More importantly you get to see your writing come alive as it journeys from the page to the stage. A director, cast and not forgetting the unsung backstage crew, can give your play a pespective that can challenge and delight the harshest critics in world Edinburgh Fringe audiences, the end. That’s what any writer works for. They hope that they have a tale to tell and others want hear it and be moved or touched by it …who wouldn’t want that chance?”
How to enter this writing competition
Plays must run between 40 and 60 minutes.
The plays must be all your own work and you must hold copyright or permissions for everything in your script, including any music.
Plays must feature roles for a minimum of six actors of any gender mix.
Plays must not have been previously performed, even as rehearsed readings.
Plays must be presented and formatted ready for the stage (ie not radio or screenplays).
The company also mentions that Fringe-show conditions favour scripts which feature a low budget and minimal set.
Entries must be in the form of a Word document with a title page giving your full name and contact details. Your name must not appear anywhere else on the script.
Please note: PDF files are not acceptable.
The winner will be announced within two months of the closing date. BigVillage reserve the right not to award the prize if a suitable play has not been received by the competition deadline of November 27th 2009.
You may submit up to two plays to: AnneRobertson252@yahoo.co.uk
To find out more and apply, please go to; http://www.bigvillage.org.uk/Competition.htm
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