ORIGINAL THEATRE COMPANY ANNOUNCES
THE THREE SHORTLISTED WINNERS FOR THEIR BRAND-NEW ORGINALS PLAYWRITING AWARD
Original Theatre today announces the three shortlisted winning plays for their brand-new playwriting prize, the Originals Playwriting Award – Drew Hewitt for The Fall, Eilidh Nurse for Miles and Teunkie Van Der Sluijs for Tikkun Olam. Each of those shortlisted receive £2000, with the winner announced post the performances at Riverside receiving a further £5000.
Additional commendations were given to scripts submitted by Jessica Norma, Rachel Jade Tookey, Rebecca Jade Hammond, Tabitha Mortiboy, James Westphal, Timothy James Poultney, and Dave Florez, with each receiving £250.
Launched in collaboration with Riverside Studios, the award targets early career playwrights and aims to innovate theatrical opportunities and build support for a talented group of new voices. From June 30 to July 2 the winning scripts will be performed at Riverside, directed by Michael Boyd, Charlotte Peters, and Amelia Sears. Each will be filmed and streamed live by North South. On 30 June Miles by Eilidh Nurse directed by Amelia Sears, on1 July The Fall by Drew Hewitt, directed by Charlotte Peters and finally, 2July Tikkun Olam by Teunkie Van Der Sluijs directed by Michael Boyd.
Alastair Whatley, Artistic Director of the Original Theatre Company said today “Choosing 3 plays to present from the hundreds of entries has been as challenging as it has been rewarding. However, I couldn’t be more delighted that our judges have chosen 3 superb new plays from 3 very exciting writers which each offer a brilliant new voice exploring big, complex, and human stories with nuance, wit, and empathy. My thanks to all the writers who submitted plays and huge congratulations to Eilidh, Drew and Teunkie our winning writers, I cannot wait to see the plays on stage at Riverside Studios at the end of the month.”
Drew Hewitt: “Winners of open submission Playwriting Awards are very lucky. Not lucky they win, lucky there are companies like Original Theatre who still believe it’s vital to create opportunities for diverse new voices to be heard.”
Eildh Nurse: “The Originals Playwriting Award is an incredible opportunity for writers, and as an emerging writer I feel really honoured to be one of the winners this year. I’m so excited and grateful for the chance to develop my play alongside this team.”
Teunkie Van Der Sluijs:“I never had the guts to write an original piece – let alone in English, which isn’t my first language – until I penned this play in an espresso-fuelled sprint of early mornings and late nights. So having this support from the Original Theatre, Riverside Studios and Michael Boyd is beyond exciting and I’m immensely grateful to all.”
MILES
By Eilidh Nurse
Directed by Amelia Sears
Thursday 30 June 7:15pm
“I feel like I’ve lost all this time.”
Somewhere in Scotland, miles from anywhere, Bobby’s Caravan Park is struggling, in fact it’s crumbling. Janie is the only employee and she’s been stuck out here for longer than she cares to admit – and she’s drinking more than she’s willing to admit, yet frankly who cares anymore? Ed can’t pass the Tesco quiz, he can’t go out in the rain without his cag in a bag, he can’t drive, and he can’t help who he’s related to. But at least he’s got a new job… at Bobby’s Caravan Park. Hopes, dreams and families collide in this searing, tender yet funny play that asks what it means to process our past and the traumas that lie within.
Eilidh Nurse is an emerging writer. She was a member of the Traverse Theatre Young Writers Programme, one of three winners of the Rose Theatre Kingston’s 2019 New Writing Festival, long-listed for the 2020 inaugural Women’s Prize for Playwriting, reached the top ten percent of submissions for the 2020 Verity Bargate Award at Soho Theatre, short-listed for the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award and reaching the top one percent of Hampstead Theatre’s 2021 Open Script Submissions process. Nurse currently works as New Work Assistant at the National Theatre, having previously held the role of Assistant Producer at both the Watermill Theatre, Newbury, and the Glasgow-based theatre company Wonder Fools.
THE FALL
By Drew Hewitt
Directed by Charlotte Peters
Friday 1 July 7:15pm
“It’s never the fall that kills you…It’s the landing.”
Whoever said that. Is wrong. It’s the fall.’ Janet and Liam are happily married until she stops stalking to him. And everybody else. To diagnose her loss of speech she begins seeing a psychiatrist who starts to probe at a secret buried in the depths of Janet’s psyche, the revelation of which has profound and lasting implications not just for her but the entire family. Drew Hewitt’s masterful play examines with wit, humour, and searing honesty the complex ideas surrounding free will, love and the painful truths of existence.
Drew Hewitt is a writer and visual artist. His playwriting credits include Another Greenland (longlisted for Bruntwood Prize, shortlisted for Papatango New Writing Award), Credo, A Smoking Revolver and Jumbo. His screenwriting credits include Hot Date, No Strings (Commissioned by ITV), Private Lives, If you See Kate, Swipe Right, The Man Who Was Thursday (adapted from the novel by G K Chesterton), The Scent of A Question Burning, White, Like Snow, The Mutt Hour. In 2015 he was invited to become an Open Session Writer at Bristol Old Vic Theatre.
TIKKUN OLAM
By Teunkie Van Der Sluijs
Directed by Michael Boyd
Saturday 2 July 7:15pm
In everything you do, you must seek the opportunity to repair the world. Steve Alexander is preparing to stand as a labour MP for the Westminster constituency. As part of his campaign, he is backing the building of a holocaust memorial near parliament square, to help the campaign gain traction. Steve and his campaign manager Dan invite social influencer Leah on board as a one woman focus group. As Dan, Steve and Leah try and persuade the divided community to back the memorial their own motivations are challenged as the political and personal ties between them are tested to the very limit. A powerful, funny, intelligent political drama, that looks at the stark contrast in views and voices in and around our capital, the ever-growing divisions between the generations, and the challenging task of mending and learning to ensure we do and are better.
“I stand here and try and make sense of all the voices and I can’t hear my own anymore.”
Teunkie Van Der Sluijsis a Dutch-British theatre-maker, working predominantly as a director in the UK and in Europe. He is Head of Artistic Development at the Young Vic, having been Creative Associate there since 2019. His translations and adaptations have been performed Off-Broadway and in a range of festivals, venues and tours in Britain and the Netherlands. Tikkun Olam is his first play. As a director, his work includes the trilogy Clybourne Park, Beneatha’s Place and A Raisin in The Sun (International Theatre Amsterdam for Well Made Productions) for which he received the 2017 Amsterdam Award for the Arts. He also directed the Netherlands premières of The Mountaintop (De Meervaart Theatre), Water Dragers (Het Zuidelijk Toneel), Lungs (Compagnie Theatre) and Motor Town (Rozen Theatre). In the UK, he has directed Hate (Barbican – was shortlisted for the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award), Yasser (Assembly Rooms Edinburgh, Arcola London, Chopin Theatre Chicago and Royal Theatre The Hague), Winter (Orange Tree Theatre), and Women Laughing (Old Red Lion, Off West End Award Nomination for Best Director). He was Resident Director for global entertainment company Imagine Nation on Anne: The Diaries of Anne Frank at Theatre Amsterdam, and previously worked at HOME Manchester, as Staff Director at the National Theatre and as Trainee Director at the Orange Tree Theatre.
ORIGINAL THEATRE
Operating and touring since 2004 the Original Theatre Company has toured extensively all over the UK and since 2020 have launched Original Theatre Online, producing a number of acclaimed online productions.
Recent online productions include Birdsong, Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon, The Haunting of Alice Bowles, Barnes’ People, A Splinter of Ice with live streaming of Being Mr Wickham, A Cold Supper Behind Harrods, The System into the Night, and The Red.
Recent stage productions include The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Splinter of Ice, The Croft, Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, Stephen Jeffreys’ Valued Friends (co-production with Rose Theatre Kingston), Torben Betts’ Caroline’s Kitchen (originally Monogamy), Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Frederick Knott’s Wait Until Dark, Torben Betts’ Invincible, Emlyn Williams’ Night Must Fall, Terence Rattigan’s Flare Path, and the award-winning tours of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong adapted by Rachel Wagstaff.
Other productions include Three Men in a Boat (a co-production with the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, 2014 & 2015), the 50th anniversary production of Sir Peter Shaffer’s The Private Ear and The Public Eye, Our Country’s Good, See How They Run, Twelfth Night, Dancing at Lughnasa, Shakespeare’s R&J, Vincent in Brixton, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, and The Madness of George III – starring the late, great Simon Ward, Journey’s End.
Twitter: @OriginalTheatre
RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
For over 45 years, RIVERSIDE STUDIOS has been the home of an extraordinary mix of theatre, film, comedy, art, dance, music and television. A cultural hub that has attracted some of the world’s best creative talent including Samuel Beckett, David Bowie, Benjamin Zephaniah, Amy Winehouse, Yoko Ono, Allen Ginsberg, Tadeusz Kantor, Lenny Henry and Michael Clark to name but a few, and TV studios that brought us much loved shows including Doctor Who, Top of the Pops and TFI Friday from the past, through to Have I Got News for You and Eggheads today.
Now, after a total redevelopment of our site, we are beginning our next creative chapter, driven by a belief in the power of creativity to bring people together, unlock potential and spark positive change in the world. We are for our community, our artists, and our audiences. We will seek out bold, innovative new ways for audiences to experience the arts, and for artists to tell their stories. Riverside Studios. We’re brand new again.
Twitter: @RiversideLondon
Instagram: @riversidestudioslondon
NORTH SOUTH
North South is a production company specialising in stage to screen led by director / producers Matt Hargraves and Sarah Butcher. It makes creative performance capture and original work for live stream, on demand, broadcast and cinema. Its work lives in the intersection of film and live performance, finding opportunities to blend genre and push boundaries to translate stage to screen through a cinematic lens with atmosphere and authenticity.
Credits include: HYMN (Sky Arts), and breathe… and The Tragedy of Macbeth for Almeida Theatre, Constellations for Donmar Warehouse, Shedding a Skin for Soho Theatre, The Rocky Horror Show (European Live Cinema Broadcast – Trafalgar Releasing) for Trafalgar Entertainment, Out West for Lyric Hammersmith, The Bolds (YouTube) for Unicorn Theatre, Lost Paradise for Lost Dog and The Place. For Original Theatre North South filmed live and streamed Into the Night, Being Mr Wickham and A Cold Supper Behind Harrods.
Instagram: @wearenorthsouth