Papatango New Writing Prize Shortlist Revealed

Papatango has announced the shortlisted writers for their 2024 New Writing Prize - Hannah Doran for The Meat Kings! (Inc) Of Brooklyn Heights; Noga Flaishon for Memoriam; Daniel Grimston for Corpselight; Patty Kim Hamilton for Peeling Oranges; and Rhys Warrington for Monument. The winner will be announced next month.

This year, in its 16th year, the Prize launches a new partnership with Park Theatre, who will co-produce the winning play with Papatango in a full run on their main stage. A record number of entries – 1,589 – were received, meaning the Prize continues to be the biggest annual playwriting scheme in the UK.

Judged anonymously, the Papatango New Writing Prize was the UK’s first, and remains the only annual, opportunity guaranteeing a new writer a full production – for 2025 in Park200 at Park Theatre, publication by Nick Hern Books, a royalty of 8% of the box office, and a £7,500 commission with full developmental support.

In addition, every entrant receives feedback on their script – a commitment made by no other company, especially significant as the Prize averages more submissions on a yearly basis than any other playwriting award.

Papatango’s George Turvey and Chris Foxon said today, “The astounding number of scripts for this year’s Prize is a reminder of the country’s vast appetite for scriptwriting, one that continues to resist shrinking provision. The five brilliant plays on this shortlist represent creative visions which demand to be realised; while we can produce only one, all deserve to be seen by audiences. Equally, the 1,584 other plays, which we are supporting with personal dramaturgy, reflect dazzling story-telling nationwide. We hope the Prize can accelerate exciting journeys for all of them.”

Jez Bond, Artistic Director of Park Theatre says “We are delighted to be working together, shortlisting these promising plays and co-producing the winning piece. Over the past eleven years we have produced a majority of new plays and have enjoyed nurturing and developing scripts – so partnering with Papatango, champions of new writing in the UK, seems like a perfect fit."

Other writers produced under the Prize include Laura Waldren, Dawn King, Dominic Mitchell, Iman Qureshi, Samuel Bailey, Tom Morton-Smith, Fiona Doyle, Matt Grinter, Luke Owen, Louise Monaghan, James Rushbrooke, Tajinder Singh Hayer, Tom Powell, Jaki McCarrick, Clive Judd, Igor Memic and Nkenna Akunna. Collectively, writers launched through the Prize have won Olivier, BAFTA, Critics’ Circle, The Times Breakthrough, OffWestEnd and RNT Foundation Awards, been nominated for the James Tait Black Drama Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, premièred in over thirty countries worldwide, and gone on to work with many leading companies as well as in the West End.

THE SHORTLISTED PLAYWRIGHTS

HANNAH DORAN for THE MEAT KINGS! (INC) OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Hannah Doran is a British-Irish playwright and screenwriter whose work has been developed and workshopped in the UK, US and Australia. Doran received her MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2018. She was selected for the National MFA Playwrights' Festival in 2017 with her short play A Last Night on Earth, which was produced by Theater Masters in Aspen, Colorado, and subsequently Off-Off-Broadway at Theater for the New City. Based in London, Doran is a bookseller and a member of The National Theatre’s script reading team. 

Cafarelli & Sons is a New York institution: the finest meat, the best butchers. T is their new summer hire. Life in a messy cold cut room isn’t easy, but for someone just out of the slammer it’s a sweet gig. But the business is struggling to survive, and once the season’s over someone is for the chop. T is determined it won’t be her. As she and her new colleagues jostle for boss Paula’s verdict, friendships will be tested – and betrayals will cut to the bone. This incisive, thrillingly theatrical story interrogates the modern workplace in a changing world.

NOGA FLAISHON for MEMORIAM

Noga Flaishon is a London-based writer/producer and a Jewish, neurodivergent immigrant. After moving to the UK in 2014, she trained as an actor at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She worked as an actor for several years before transitioning into writing and producing full-time during the pandemic, and recently completed her MFA in 'Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media', again at Central. Her writing credits in theatre include Bunker (Lion & Unicorn Theatre and Edinburgh Fringe), Broken Link (On-Comm-nominated virtual theatre piece – Living Record Festival), andLethe (King’s Head Theatre). Audio plays include My Father Punished Me When I Talked to Ghosts (self-distributed), Smile, It will Be Over Soon (Evergreen Podcasts), and The War Doctor Begins - A Mother’s Love (Big Finish), as well as multiple forthcoming Doctor Who-related audio projects. Flaishon also wrote for the game Zombies Run! (Six to Start).

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.

DANIEL GRIMSTON for CORPSELIGHT

Daniel Grimston is a writer, actor and activist from rural Sussex. He trained on The Royal Court Theatre’s Intro To Playwriting, Pentabus National Writer’s Group, and the John Burgess Writing Course. His monologue Bridge of Sighs was published in FIERCE, an anthology of queer monologues curated by Rikki Beadle Blair. His debut play Corpselight won the 2023 Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass Trust Pitch Your Play Competition. His writing has been workshopped at London Performance Studios and Royal Exchange Theatre. His first podcast, Is It Hot Where You Are?, was produced by the RISE Collective in 2023. As a poet he has worked with organisations including the V&A, Apples and Snakes, The Dark Mountain Project and London Wildlife Trust. He is currently under commission by the Right to Roam Campaign as their Poet-In-(Non)-Residence. He trained as an actor at the Oxford School of Drama, NYT and Peckham Rep, most recently appearing as James Joyce in the film Kino Volta.

A year after Paul’s death, Tom is searching for him in the strange blue flames that flicker and fade across the farm. His wife Kay is desperately trying to keep the business alive, whatever the cost to their marriage. But when their daughter Viv returns from the city, new partner in tow, secrets will be exposed and a devastating grief unleashed that could spell the family’s end. Corpselight is a profound meditation on rural lives, queer relationships and the changing face of England.

PATTY Kim Hamilton for PEELING ORANGES

Patty Kim Hamilton is a poet-playwright, dramaturg, director and performance artist with roots in North Korea and Ireland. She studied at Stanford University and the University of the Arts Berlin. In 2023-2024 she was playwright-in-residence at the Deutsches Theater Berlin. Her play Peeling Oranges received the Heidelberger Stückemarkt Radio Play Prize, the Nancy Dean Lesbian Theatre Award and the Jane Chambers Award for Feminist Playwriting, among other honours. Her play Schmerz Camp was produced at Theater Bremen and published through Suhrkamp Theater. Re: Jane Doe was a recipient of the RSC’s 37 Plays Initiative (which included a public reading at York Theatre Royal) and had a world premiere at Schauspielhaus Graz. Her adaptation of Peter Pan will premiere at Deutsches Theater Berlin in October 2024, and her play Lonely Hearts Club will premiere at Theater Bielefeld in May 2025. Several of her plays are available in English as well as German. As a dramaturg, she is currently working on Christopher Adams-Cohen’s Mad Gay King, which will premiere in October at the King’s Head Theatre. 

Jae returns home to the small town of Sisters, Oregon, to find her mother (Umma) and sister Luna preoccupied with their own emotional worlds. As relationships begin to unravel, the family is forced to confront their memories – their ghosts – in an attempt to reconstruct their past. When a new resident of the town enters Jae’s life, the assumptions and fears running through their history are revealed. A reflection on memory, daughter-sister-motherhood and Korean-American women, this play questions the boundaries between culture, love and mental health.

RHYS WARRINGTON for MONUMENT

Rhys Warrington is a Welsh writer and actor who trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. His writing credits for stage include Blue (Chippy Lane Productions/Chapter Arts Centre), Get Ready With Me (Pentabus Young Writers Cohort 2023) and Out Of The Blue (Llandovery Heart of Wales Theatre Festival). His feature film Bambi: The Reckoning is set for release in January 2025. In 2024 Warrington is one of the BBC Welsh Voices. He was shortlisted for both the Bread and Roses Playwriting Award and the BOLD Playwright scheme. 

Three years ago something terrible happened, something that changed a quiet Welsh village forever. Tonight, the residents, local politicians and survivors gather to decide how – if – the tragedy should be commemorated. Rhian thinks the proposed monument is grotesque, a stunt which will mean the community can never escape the past. Debi is determined that her terrible loss is not forgotten. Wily councillor Cameron and traumatised Gareth have their own agenda. Tonight, they all get a say. Tonight, the audience will decide in a public vote whether the monument goes ahead. Tonight, the complex role that acts of public witness play, whether they heal or exploit, will be decided, in a fierce, unforgettable theatrical experience.

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