Original Theatre Company Announces The Directors For The Original Playwriting Award's Script-in-hand Performances

Original Theatre Company today announces the directors for the script-in-hand performances of the winners of their new playwriting prize Original Playwriting Award Amelia Sears, Michael Boyd, Michael Fentiman, and Charlotte Peters.

The Originals Playwriting Award is aimed at emerging and early career playwrights. The winner of the Award will receive a cash prize of £7,000, with three further winners receiving £2,000 each. Each of the four plays will receive a script-in-hand performance at the venue. Four nights, four brilliant new plays, four amazing casts, with each new play having direction from an established theatre director. Submissions are now closed for playwrights, however there is still a chance to be part of the live studio audience for these events which will broadcast live around the world by North South. Produced by Original Theatre Company and launched in collaboration with Riverside Studios.

Book early to get the best prices for this exciting festival of new writing: bit.ly/OriginalsOT

Michael Boyd is a theatre director and the former Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His career has taken him from training in Moscow to artistic directorships at the Tron Theatre Glasgow (1985-96), and the Royal Shakespeare Company (2002-12), where he commissioned and developed Matilda the Musical, produced the Complete Works and World Shakespeare Festivals, oversaw the £112 million transformation of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and directed the 8 play History Cycle, which won four Olivier Awards and was described by the Guardian as "one of the great moments of modern theatre".

Recent work includes, Orfeo (Roundhouse), Eugene Onegin, Pelleas and Melisande, and Don Giovanni (Garsington Opera), Tamburlaine (Theatre for a New Audience), iHo, The King of Hell's Palace (Hampstead Theatre), Open House, Wild Goose Dreams (The Ustinov and The Print Room), and The Cherry Orchard (Bristol Old Vic and Royal Exchange Theatre). He was Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at the Universities of Oxford and Michigan and was knighted in 2012 for services to drama.

Michael Fentiman is trained as an actor at Bretton Hall and later as a Director at Mountview Academy. Michael spent three years with the Royal Shakespeare Company as part of the 2009-2011 Long Ensemble. Michael's production of Amelie was nominated for three Olivier awards including best new musical. In 2021, Michael received a Grammy nomination for his work on the Amelie cast album.Theatre: includes The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (UK Tour), The Windsors: Endgame (Prince of Wales Theatre), Amelie The Musical (Criterion Theatre), Taming of the Shrew (Tron Theatre), The Importance of Being Earnest (Vaudeville Theatre), Loot, Rising Mother (Park Theatre), Babe - The Sheep Pig, TheMinotaur (Polka Theatre), The War Has Not Yet Started (Theatre Royal Plymouth), and The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus (Royal Shakespeare Company). For Original Theatre: Watching Rosie and Valued Friends.

Charlotte Peters is a stage and screen director who has been an Associate of Original Theatre Company for the last five years. She is Associate Director of An Inspector Calls and War Horse (National Theatre) and is directing the upcoming new production of The Invisible Man (PW Productions) For Original Theatre Company, Birdsong, The Private Ear/The Public Eye (UK tours). Other theatre direction includes, The Miracle Worker (Chelmsford Theatres), Timeless (UK tour), Dance (King's Head Theatre), Alexa: Cry Me A Dance (Ilkley Playhouse), Carlotta da Galleon-A Fool for Love (Chelsea Theatre), King Arthur and Almost A Christmas Carol (Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury), How Love Is Spelt (Southwark Playhouse), Normality (The Other Palace), Sunday at the Musicals series (Actors' Church, Covent Garden), Caste (Finborough Theatre), The Mouth of a Shark (VAULT Festival), By My Strength (Women & War Festival).Other screen work includes Peter Pan and Cinderella, A Moment's Peace, The Ultimatum Game, Without You, and Reasons.

Amelia Sears is associate director of SEARED productions. Sears' Credits include Years of Sunlight (Theatre503), Home, Brimstone and Treacle, Antstreet (Arcola Theatre), Every Woman (Vaults Festival), The Girls Guide To Saving The World (HighTide Festival), What The Thunder Said (Theatre Centre), Swifter, Higher, Stronger (Roundhouse), Pedestrian (Underbelly), The Last Five Years (Duchess Theatre), Twelfth Night (Wyndham's Theatre), Bliss (Royal Court Theatre), One Evening, Four Quartets (Lincoln Center), Al Gransole Carico D'Amore, (Salzburg Opera Festival), Some Trace Of Her, The Year of Magical Thinking and Statement of Regret (National Theatre). Film credits include, Three and Ceres. She was also the recipient of the Bulldog Princep Director's Bursary at The National Theatre Studio and served as a panelist on the Yale playwriting Prize for 6 years.

Michael Boyd "Artists who dare to sit with the silent, blank screen or page and sweat until they have a story and characters to tell it deserve every incentive, we can give them. Directing the first reading of an original work is always a privileged and exciting moment of possibility and risk."

Charlotte Peters "Having seen Original Theatre go from strength to strength in the last few years, supporting both established writers and emerging voices, I am really thrilled to be joining the Originals Festival."

Amelia Sears "I'm completely thrilled to be a part of Originals. We need new voices right now more than ever before and it's exciting to be a part of a new model of making and sharing work which feels so inherently democratic and most importantly accessible."

To post a comment, you must register and login.