Royal Court Theatre Reveals Line-Up for Inaugural Open Submissions Festival
The plays will be performed as staged readings in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs over a week in early April.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Mar. 20, 2025
The Royal Court Theatre has revealed the line-up for the inaugural Open Submissions Festival, the theatre’s brand new regular professional platform to showcase stand-out new writing which has been submitted to the theatre through our year-round open submissions portal.
The plays will be performed as staged readings in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs over a week in early April, each paired with a director and a professional team, to give these plays the best possible industry spotlight.
The writers featuring in the Festival are Mary Higgins, Rhys Warrington, Noga Flaishon, Jack Nicholls and Benjamin Kuffuor. The plays are directed by Katie Mitchell and Ellis Buckley, Blanche McIntyre, Daniel Goldman, David Byrne and Aneesha Srinivasan and NANCY MEDINA.
The Royal Court’s year-round open submission portal, along with the guarantee that every play submitted through it will be read by a team of readers, is integral to the theatre’s ongoing mission to seek out the best new writers and writing around the world.
Gillian Greer, Associate Playwright and Senior Dramaturg at The Royal Court Theatre and co-curator of the festival, said, “We are delighted to offer this opportunity to five stand out writers who bravely shared their plays with us. These plays represent the most exciting work we have read among the thousands of plays submitted to us each year - we can't wait to share them with you.”
The festival runs from Monday 7 - Saturday 12 April 2025 in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. Tickets cost £7.50 and go on-sale to the public at midday on Thursday 20 March 2025.
SHOW BY SHOW
very wet
By Mary Higgins
Directed by Katie Mitchell and Ellis Buckley
Monday 7 April 2025, 7.45pm
Rain. Nell arrives at a half-drowned house in rural Scotland to confront Brigid, her dead mum’s ex lover. Rain. Her boyfriend follows. Rain. Four people find themselves neck-deep in a looming eco-crisis and sucked into the currents of the past. Flood.
Monument
By Rhys Warrington
Directed by Blanche McIntyre
Wednesday 9 April 2025, 7.45pm
With the eyes of the world watching, a Welsh farming community gathers to vote on whether or not to build a Memorial. But what does this Memorial commemorate? Why is it so contentious? And how, when the time comes, will you vote?
Part fiery town hall debate, part relationship drama; Monument is an epic examination of a rural community (with all its eccentricities and humour) dealing with an unprecedented event.
Memoriam
By Noga Flaishon
Directed by Daniel Goldman
Thursday 10 April 2025, 7.45pm
The near-future. Memories can be bought and sold. Rachel negotiates those deals, helping people to share experiences, to heal the gaps in their own lives. She knows her job makes a difference. Until she’s tasked with extracting a precious memory from her own grandmother, Rivka, the last survivor of the Holocaust. She is forced to ask: is this a vital historical record, or commercial exploitation of victimhood? Is reliving unimaginable suffering ever justified? And what has generational trauma done to her family? Memoriam is a searingly observed examination of remembrance, Jewish identity and the burden of history.
The Shitheads
By Jack Nicholls
Directed by David Byrne and Aneesha Srinivasan
Friday 11 April 2025, 7.45pm
Tens of thousands of years ago, Britain's earliest inhabitants reckon with care, family, and the weather.
Working Men
By Benjamin Kuffuor
Directed by NANCY MEDINA
Saturday 12 April 2025, 7.45pm
A fatal incident on a council estate leads a team of employees to retrace their steps as senior management, local counsellors and the wider public are in search of someone to blame.
Working Men is about money and social housing. The play looks at how decisions are made for those who have no choice.
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