Manchester Royal Exchange unveils £45,000 writing prize

Published Tuesday 18 October 2005 at 12:05 by Nuala Calvi

Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester is to launch the UK’s biggest playwriting competition outside London, with prize money totalling £45,000 and the chance to have work fully staged in its 770-seat auditorium.

The competition will be open to writers of all ages and experience, and selection will be anonymous, allowing novices and professionals to compete side by side. The judging panel will be chaired by former secretary of state for culture Chris Smith and will include Brenda Blethyn, Kwame Kwei-Armah and Nicholas Hytner.

Artistic director Braham Murray said: “We have been running small competitions here for the last few years and the standard was very good, so we thought, let’s go for the big one. The winner gets £15,000 and gets produced in our main house, with the second prize £10,000 and a production in our studio and the third prize £5,000. There will be a special award for people under 26 and another for a new talent to be writer in residence for a year. The combination of all those opportunities make it by far the biggest competition of its kind.”

The Royal Exchange has previously produced successful new work such as Simon Stephens’ On The Shore of the Wide World, which transferred to the National Theatre, and Nick Leather’s All The Ordinary Angels, which won the Pearson Award and opens at the Exchange on October 26. The venue also ran a successful playwriting award up until 15 years ago.

Named the Bruntwood Playwriting Competition after its sponsors, a Manchester-based property company, it will be launched on November 3, when applications forms will be available at www.royalexchange.co.uk. The closing date will be at the end of April and the two winning entries will be presented during the inaugural Manchester International Festival in 2007.

Ola Animashawun, associate director of the Royal Court and head of its young people’s writing programme, said the anonymity of the new competition could throw up some unexpected results. “It will be interesting to see whether first time playwrights could win over established writers,” he said. “I like the boldness of the gesture. And there aren’t many playwriting competitions - they tend to be awards. Competitions encourage people to have a go at writing who haven’t necessarily thought of doing it before. They also invariably have a higher profile and generate more interest.”

Stage contributor and critic Aleks Sierz, author of In-Yer-Face Theatre and a former judge of the King’s Cross Award for New Writing, welcomed the creation of a high profile award outside the capital.

“The truth with the playwriting culture is it’s very London-centric,” he said. “It’s great there’s an award somewhere outside London which will also stimulate local interest. The Exchange has the necessary kudos.”