Rolling Members’ Submission Window

Over last three years, hundreds of our members have submitted their plays to us and received feedback on their work, with selected writers being chosen for our development schemes. We really pride ourselves on reading every play (twice!) and providing written feedback to each writer – we know this is rare!

However, we’re always looking for ways to improve and opening a short submission window each year means our resources become stressed to the max! There is a huge pressure on our reading team and the admin of logging and distributing the plays and feedback is also a mammoth task. Not only does this make things difficult for our organisation, which already runs on limited funds and a very small team, but it also means it takes us a long time to get back to you, the writers, which we understand can be frustrating – especially if you want to get cracking with a redraft based on our feedback!

So this year year, we’re introducing a rolling format for our submission window. From now, our window is open! And all members are welcome to submit one play each in a 12 month period. The rest of the process will stay the same – your plays will all be read twice and you’ll get a feedback report. We’ll get back to you with feedback within three months, but depending on how spread out the submissions we receive are, we’re hoping this might be a lot quicker (this is a new process so only time will tell on this!). Plays that we feel we could help develop further will be added to a shortlist. We’ll then take a short break from submissions over summer 2025 to consider the shortlist and plan the next round of development programmes.

Who can apply: all London Playwrights members. Not a member yet? Sign up here for just £3.63 per month. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the resources to open this up to non-members but we always welcome new sign ups!

How to submit: please send your scripts to membersubmissions@londonplaywrights.org. Please include your name and contact details on your script but there is no need to send any additional materials. Before submitting, please read the terms and conditions below.

We can’t wait to read your work! 

Terms & Conditions 

• Over 18’s only.
• One submission per member in the submission window period: September 2024 –  July 2025.
• Open to members only: you are very welcome to sign up as a new member in order to submit your work! However, members who cancel their subscriptions during the process will not be eligible for feedback or development schemes and their plays will be withdrawn from the process. This is to ensure fair use of our very limited resources as we do not receive any external funding.
• The reading period will close during Summer 2025 to allow us to consider the shortlist and organise development opportunities for selected writers. Plays received during this time will not be considered for 2025 development opportunities but they will be read and considered for the following year.
• We accept plays of any length or genre.
• Please send us completed scripts only.
• We are not looking for first drafts; please redraft your work to the best of your ability before submitting. This will give our readers the chance to give you new ideas and feedback which perhaps you hadn’t considered already and will hopefully make it more valuable for you [we don’t want to be telling you things you already know, so try to address any issues you feel aware of already before you send it to us!]
• Each writer will receive one feedback report from a member of our reading team; no further feedback will be given.
• We aim to get back to writers within three months. Please bear with us as we are a small team and we’re doing our best to read your plays thoroughly.
• We ask that you avoid emailing us for updates within the three month period: as mentioned above, we are a very small team and extra admin stretches us further; if you have any questions about the process, please email contact@londonplaywrights.org as this inbox is manned daily.
• Our decisions on the shortlist and development opportunities are final.