Well, that’s another year done and dusted.
The Greater Manchester Fringe Festival 2019 was an exceptional year, and I’m delighted to report that the standard of writing gets better and better.
It’s a genuine joy and a privilege to be able to recognise the quality of the playwriting at the festival. The WFTS Prize for New Writing is all about finding new voices and helping to get those voices the recognition they deserve. The first prize is a publication with WFTS Books, but the legacy of the award goes beyond the publication.
We're committed to helping develop the work of new and established theatre-makers, to bring work of exceptional quality to the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival.
Legacy
In the past, our prize winners have gone on to tour their work around the UK; received funding from Arts Council England; been commission by the BBC; got agents; and continued to hone their craft.
We’ve had production requests from around the world for the plays we’ve published, helping that work find new life. We’re very proud of the prize and love that we can offer this opportunity to promote new work and give it an extended life beyond the Greater Manchester Fringe festival.
So, we’re very excited to announce our longlist, shortlist, and winners for this year’s prize.
The writing
First of all, we judge the prize purely on the writing. We get out to see as much as we possibly can throughout July, but there’s - inevitably - shows that we can’t attend. Everyone sends us a script when they apply for the prize, and we always read the script if we can’t see the production.
The prize is currently unfunded, so we’re enormously grateful and in debt to our collection of professionals who comprise the judging panel. They give up their own time to go and see the work throughout July, and then we battle it out at the end of the month for our winner.
The Judges
Stephen M Hornby
Stephen is a multi-award-winning playwright and director and the co-host of the WriteForTheStage Podcast.
Stephen is completing an AHRC funded PhD, researching playwriting from archives. He is National Playwright in Residence to LGBT History Month and artistic director of Inkbrew Productions.
Stephen lectures at the University of Salford on playwriting and the history of British Theatre.
Plays include:
Adhesion of Love, toured North West, spring 2019
The Burnley Buggers’ Ball, toured North West, spring 2017 to 5 STAR reviews
Die Diana winner of the 2016 Best Drama Award for the Greater Manchester Fringe
A Very Victorian Scandal, Arts Council of England funded
Stephen is under commission to several UK museums. His short film Unchechen won a Wings Award in 2018 and has been screened around the world. The Adhesion of Love explores Bolton's connection with the queer American poet Walt Whitman and will tour in 2019.
Twitter & Instagram: @stephenmhornby @inkbrew
Jayne Marshall
Jayne has a Distinction MA in Playwriting from Salford University and runs the WriteForTheStage courses in Glossop.
She's a qualified trainer (C&G 7307 and CIPD Associate) with over 14 years of teaching experience and has taught creative writing with the Workers Education Authority.
Jayne's work has been performed around the NorthWest at venues such as The Lowry, Studio Salford, and at the 24:7 Theatre Festival.
Most recent project: ‘Sharing the Story: Make Do and Mend’ a collaboration with a group of older women who grew up in Tameside during WWII. This was performed for them at their communal lounge and within local community venues across Tameside as part of Ambition For Ageing’s inaugural Festival of Ageing.
Jayne was one of the winners of the BBC Radio/Royal Exchange Manchester Monologues with ‘Hand to Hand Combat’.
Naomi Sumner
Naomi Sumner Chan is a Manchester-based playwright & dramaturg. She leads Brush Stroke Order, a new writing company providing workshops, mentoring, and support to those who write for live performance.
Naomi currently reads for The National Theatre, The Royal Exchange Theatre and Sheffield Theatres.
SAME SAME DIFFERENT, a verbatim play exploring adoption and identity was commissioned by Eclipse Theatre and toured across the North of England in Spring 2019.
Her new play BANANA SPLIT is in development with Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.
Richard Douglas
Richard Douglas began writing in 2009.
Turning his sights towards playwriting, he joined the first cohort of WriteForTheStage students and was actively involved in four courses covering writing and producing over several years.
Out of this came his first play Barbara the Zoo Keeper in 2014, followed by Marina and the Clone in 2016 which had some success with the BBC Writers Room, and Margaret, a monologue which debuted at GM Fringe Festival 2017 and toured locally.
Richard has produced several plays, both his own and others; including work by Mike Heath, Robert Pegg, Tom Hogan and Proud and Loud Arts: a professional disability arts organisation.
He works part-time for a digital agency as a copywriter, character writer for an artificially intelligent chatbot, and app scriptwriter.
Richard is writing his first novel and eyeing up a return to Manchester’s fringe scene.
Dr Szilvi Naray-Davey
Szilvi is a drama practitioner, director, dramaturge, academic, and lecturer at Salford University. She has performed on stage and film in New York, Los Angeles, London and Manchester.
Szilvi trained in method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and worked as an actress for ten years before founding her own theatre company, Ignition Stage, in 2007. Ignition Stage’s remit is to produce translated drama from Central and Eastern Europe.
Among her recent productions is ‘PRAH’ (written by Hungary’s acclaimed playwright Gyorgy Spiro), translated and directed by Szilvi. The play was staged in Manchester and London, supported by a generous Arts Council grant. It was extremely well received by audiences and reviewers alike.
Szilvi’s PhD was in literary translation, with a particular emphasis on drama translation, both as a translator and a Translation Studies scholar. To date, she has translated three contemporary Hungarian plays; these will be used as part of a publication for Oberon Books. Szilvi also co-translates contemporary Hungarian short stories, together with Dr Ursula Hurley.
Szilvi was awarded her PhD in 2016 for her doctoral thesis entitled ‘Practice-Based Methodologies for Contemporary Drama Translation’.
Mike Heath
Mike Heath is an award-winning playwright, director, tutor, copywriter, and dramaturg. He has a Distinction MA in Playwriting and has written 18 stage plays which have been performed extensively around the North West of England, London, Wales, Cornwall, and Western Australia.
His latest play, The Big Things, was shortlisted for the BBC Alfred Bradley Bursary Award, where it was developed with the drama department and subsequently enjoyed a (rather controversial) 3-week run in London. His work has been published in paperback, and he is the founding tutor of WriteForTheStage.
Mike has been developing his most recent play, boyfriend stroke husband, through Liverpool Everyman's Playwright's Programme. He teaches playwriting at Salford University.
Our Longlist:
Skank, by Clementine Bogg-Hargrove
A Touch of Magic, by Anne Wynne
Our Kid, by Taran Knight
Woman on Fire, by John Wouldberg
Best Girl, by Christine Mackie
Holy Sh*t, by Jack Fairhurst
A Quick Guide To Ruining Your Life, by Laura Harper
The Death of a Muse, by Rois Doherty
People Are Happy On Trains, by Anna Doyle
My Fitbit Called Me A Fat Bitch, by Ronnie Leek
Fifty and Nifty, by Beverly Green
Holy Land, by Matthew Gouldesbrough
The Decriminalisation Monologues, by Sean Denyer
Each of these pieces represented excellence in theatre writing: good structural form, clear and distinctive characterisation, and lean, active, dramatic dialogue. Many of them were experimental in form and striking examples of strong, character-driven narrative.
Our Shortlist:
A Quick Guide to Ruining Your Life, by Laura Harper
A great piece of dramatic writing, achieving a clear sense of world problem and an unpredictable, yet believable character arc. An excellent example of “what if” writing, following a single, ill-conceived decision through to its natural and character-defining conclusion. Funny, touching, and excellent use of dramatic monologue.
My Fitbit Called Me A Fat Bitch, by Ronnie Leek
Experimental in form and poetically constructed, this is a piece that explores modern predicaments in entertaining and unpredictable ways. Funny, challenging, and memorable.
Holy Land, by Matthew Gouldesbrough
Dark, challenging, and innovative use of form. Storytelling that takes us on a journey of exploration through the places we’d rather not see. The type of script that haunts you and emerges everywhere you look.
Our Kid, by Taran Knight
A beautiful example of monologue that tricks you into thinking it has a full cast. Well-drawn characters and a clear problematic dilemma that demands resolution. Takes you on an unpredictable journey of epic proportions.
Fifty & Nifty, by Beverley Green
A great example of comedy writing, with echoes of Victoria Wood and A League of Gentleman, but with a distinct voice and a clear, dreadful antagonist who needs to seek retribution (but doesn’t!).
Each of these pieces are excellent examples of character- and action-driven theatrical writing. The dialogue is lean and active, with a clear, narrative structure. Each piece has a clearly defined Problem of the World that propels the protagonist into action to overcome obstacles and fight their way through to a resolution.
To find out more about our criteria, listen to the WFTS Podcast, enrol for one of our courses or attend the next WriteForTheStage GMFringe Development Conference (dates tbc).
And our winner is:
A Quick Guide To Ruining Your Life, by Laura Harper.
We’ll be publishing A Quick Guide To Ruining Your Life through WFTS Books and making it available for purchase on Amazon and associated bookstores.
For details of previous winners, click here.
Special Recognition
Holy Land, by Matthew Gouldesbrough
We decided that Holy Land was too significant a piece of work not to recognise, so we give our Special Recognition prize to Matthew Gouldesbrough for writing an unflinchingly real and challenging theatrical work that tackles issues that are hard to explore convincingly.
We also recognised the work of Hung Theatre - a group of new writers from the Royal Exchange Young Writers group with clear and distinct voices. Their show, Bypass, was a collection of shorts that explored a common theme. We gave special commendation to Cat Sharples, Kiedis Quigley, and Chloe Weare. We’d like to offer some support to these writers to develop a longer piece for next year’s fringe.
Thank you
Finally, we’d like to thank everyone at the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival for making the festival happen: particularly Zena Barrie, Lisa Connor, Iain Scott, and Debbie Manley.
They work tirelessly to make this brilliant, month-long event happen every year.
