Pressure Players Announce First International Partnership

The Pressure Players, a local NYC-based production company based in NYC announced its first international collaboration in the United Kingdom today, partnering with the University of Northampton's Drama Department in an effort to feature rising talent and nurture stories of its growing global audience.

"It makes me proud, as a company, to be able to reach out to young writers that we can collaborate with in the future. I look forward to the day when we can create projects together and work together as one," said Business Manager Jim Walsh.

Three students in the Northampton Drama Department's radio writing class will win a permanent feature on the company's website, and both the first and second place winners will also be awarded an online reading with a talkback where they can get direct feedback from the international audience supporting their effort. But, only one script will be selected and produced as a radio play, to be released for sale in spring via their website.

"I'm super excited to read stories from the future generation of writers, said incoming Executive Director Samantha Castro, "especially from the part of the world I have little to no knowledge about. As a small startup company, it's great that we already have a partner from across the seas in just under a year! I'm looking forward to this collaboration as well as all the ones in the future."

Expected to be at least 25 minutes apiece, scripts will be judged by the existing administrative team, including Castro and a mystery judge. The only thing public about the unknown panelist so far is that they're partnering with The Pressure Players for the very first time, and the company promises to announce the identity of the anonymous judge after the deadline to submit to the competition passes.

"We're not announcing the last judge just yet, because we don't want the writers to change their stories for the benefit of our panel," said Artistic Director Danielle Kogan, "This is a company focused on making sure narratives that don't belong to the writer are not being pushed into creative work, and not trying to inadvertently censor a work as much as possible. We want the pieces to be work reflective of the most authentic self right now at this moment these talented students can bring to their radio plays."