The Bush Theatre’s twice-yearly open submission window for new scripts opens today, for three months. The window closes on 11 September.
The submission window is open to playwrights from the UK and Republic of Ireland who do not currently have an agent and have a full length play that can be considered for production at the Bush Theatre. We are looking for plays that ask big questions of our time, represent the plurality of our culture and have a bold contemporary bite. From our home in Shepherd’s Bush we are committed to championing playwrights and plays that represent the diversity of our city, the UK and the world.
Once you have submitted your play it will be read by a dedicated team of readers, made up of theatre professionals and led by the Bush’s Associate Dramaturg. We are looking for new plays to produce in the first instance and will feedback to those playwrights whose plays we are interested in developing further. However, our unsolicited submission windows are also where we look to start new relationships with playwrights not currently known to us and will contact those writers who we are keen to get to know better.
Plays can be submitted via the Bush Theatre website at https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/bushgreen/submissions/
Those submitting scripts are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the Bush’s work, by visiting the theatre and seeing a play or reading those plays it has produced recently. BushGreen (https://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/bushgreen/) is the first port of call to get to know the Bush’s writers, read articles around its work and engage within a thriving community of artists.
BushGreen is a strand of programming focused on expanding the reach and depth of the theatre’s work and encompasses both digital content and live events. It is based around the concept of the green being the centre of any community and is a place for audiences and artists to meet, talk, play and pause – surrounded and informed by the world around them.
Full guidelines are provided on BushGreen and the following submissions are not accepted: screenplays, proposals for adaptations, new musicals (which the Bush would not develop outside of a commission), one act plays, plays previously submitted to us and multiple submissions .