Nina Millns Wins ETPEP Award For SERVICE

The ETPEP Award 2021 has been won by Nina Millns for her play Service.

She will receive a prize of £6,000, a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre including one-to-one dramaturgy with Finborough Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Neil McPherson; a rehearsal workshop with actors and a director to develop the play; and a staged reading performance of the winning play either at the Finborough Theatre, London, pandemic permitting, or online; and publication by Salamander Street, independent publisher of theatre, performance and live art. There will be ten runner-up prizes of £300 each, including the two shortlist candidates - Nicole Joseph and Wela Mbusi.

Nina Millns is a writer and script editor who studied English Literature at Sheffield University and Acting at East 15. She studied improvisation with the Free Association, Showstoppers and Monkey Toast and trained in Clown with the infamous Phillippe Gaulier. She is a member of the Criterion New Writers and the School of Hightide, and was shortlisted for the 2020 Sphinx30 program, a writers' development programme for female playwrights.

Nina's play Delete was longlisted for the PapaTango Award and featured on BBC Radio 4. Her second script Service was placed in the top 2% of BBC Scriptroom Drama submissions. Recent commissions include writing the BBC Sounds series Mortem which was honoured at the Webby Awards, and Doctor Who for Big Finish Productions. As an activist, Nina was celebrated by the Huffington Post on International Women's Day for her involvement in the UK #MeToo movement. She has consulted on Equity Union's report on sexual harassment in the industry, attended the House of Commons and works with On Road Media, a charity supporting activists engaging with the media. Nina is a proud Londoner of mixed heritage who speaks four languages. She comes from a musical family and was named after Nina Simone. She also works with young people as a tutor and mentor and is passionate about helping them fulfil their potential.

A date for the reading of Nina's winning play will be announced shortly.

The ETPEP Award is a playwriting prize for new UK playwrights who work or have worked in the theatre industry, run by the Finborough Theatre in association with the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust (ETPEP).

The ETPEP Award is open to UK residents of any age who have not had a play professionally produced, and who have worked front of house, in administrative roles, on stage, backstage, lighting, design etc. or in a creative capacity in theatre for at least two years, either now or in the past. The award is intended to target and encourage those who are currently working in theatre but who are new to playwriting. The award is judged completely anonymously until the final shortlist and interview stage.

The ETPEP Award 2022 has also been announced and will be open for entries from 8 November 2021 - 30 April 2022.

The prizes have been increased from the 2021 competition, and the 2022 winner will receive a prize of £8000, a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre including one-to-one dramaturgy with Finborough Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Neil McPherson; a rehearsal workshop with actors and a director to develop the play; and a staged reading performance of the winning play either at the Finborough Theatre, London, or online; and publication by Salamander Street, independent publisher of theatre, performance and live art. There will be ten runner-up prizes of £400 each.

The judges for both the 2021 and the 2022 Award will include Artistic Director of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Neil McPherson; Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Sue Healy; producer Ameena Hamid; actor, playwright and activist Athena Stevens; and Clive Webster of the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust, which founded the award.

For full details on entry for the 2022 competition, please visit https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/etpep-award-2022/.

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