With January nearly coming to an end (did someone say payday?!), we thought it was time we gave you a sneak peek into what we’ve got coming up at London Playwrights’ Workshop in 2020. 2019 was a fantastic year for us, from producing a podcast with the Bush Theatre, to meeting brilliant new writers through our workshops, and showcasing some exciting new writing at our Play Club Readings (read more about our action packed 2019 here). But at LPW, we’re not really ones to sit back and relax so we’re planning on making this year our best. year. yet. As always, we’ll be focusing on providing resources for emerging writers, arming you with the tools you need, and empowering you to be a playwright in 2020. Here’s a rundown of our plans for the year:
The Blog: We’ll be continuing with our core work of rounding up all the latest playwriting opportunities in one place and as always, this will remain free and accessible to all. We’ll also be continuing to develop original content, including our popular Interviewing Playwrights series – all our blog posts are aimed at giving you an insight into gaining playwriting experience and providing advice.
#WrAP2020: We’ve currently got around 200 of you taking part in our January playwriting challenge, #WrAP2020, making it our biggest year yet! That’s 200 playwrights who are working on new ideas, and might just have a first draft under their belts by the end of January, what a way to start the year! If you missed #WrAP2020, don’t worry – you can still sign up and work through the writing prompts in your own time.
London Playwrights 2020: All #WrAP2020 participants are invited to submit their new plays (work-in-progress) for consideration for our new writer development scheme. We’ll be selecting 4 writers for the programme, who will be given mentoring, masterclasses and support in developing their new plays throughout the year, culminating in a rehearsed reading. We’re really excited about uncovering and supporting some fantastic new writers and we can’t wait to see their plays at the end of the year! (Submission details for London Playwrights will be emailed to #WrAP2020 participants at the end of the month).
Online resources: We’re currently developing new content for our members including a guide to formatting your script, a course on tackling structure, and an introduction to playwriting course for beginners or those who want to revisit the building blocks of playwriting. We’ll also be adding some new resources on the professional side of playwriting, such as navigating social media and getting your work seen. This is in addition to the resources currently available, which includs the Self-Producing Handbook and online courses in writing dialect to name just a couple! Find out more about becoming a member and accessing these resources here.
Play Club: After the success of our online book club in 2019, Play Club will be back for 2020 so watch this space for announcement! As before, for each Play Club text, writers will be invited to write a short play in response, which can be submitted to us – selected plays will be performed as a rehearsed reading at the end of 2020. The Play Club readings event at the Old Red Lion in December last year was a huge success and not only was the quality of the writing fantastic, but we had a lovely supportive audience in and it was great to meet lots of you who came along.
Workshops: we’re currently working on our programme of London based workshops for 2020 – expect one off workshops on Structure, Developing Characters, and Writing Compelling Dialogue and well as the return of our popular Redrafting Programme later on in the year. As always, members get 20% off our workshops.
Script Consulting: we’ll be continuing to offer a range of script consulting services to suit a variety of budgets and we’ve got a wonderful team of script consultants on board this year, all of whom are passionate about plays and committed to developing the work of new writers. We also now have a script consultant who is experienced in musicals on the team so if you want us to take a look at your musical script, send it over! Again, members pay at least 20% less for script consulting.
Podcast: we’ve got plenty of ideas for a new podcast in the pipeline! In the meantime, you can still catch Making It With Temi Wilkey, our podcast in collaboration with The Bush and One Fine Play here.
Member Meetups: we love meeting you all and talking all things writing and we’re also investigating ways pair this up with creating opportunities to have your work read by actors. So stay tuned for more news on this once we get the plans finalised.
AND THAT’S NOT ALL! We’re constantly working on new ideas, bringing new team members on board and figuring out new ways to support emerging playwrights. So keep your eyes open for announcements popping up throughout the year!
All of these resources are made possible by the continued support of our members so if that’s you, thank you!! – and we’re also grateful to absolutely everyone who visits our website, follows us on social media, or comes along to our events.
If you’d like to support us, and get access to all the member benefits, read about signing up here.
Here’s to another year of London Playwrights Workshop – and supporting a new generation of playwrights!
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