Hello NTW community,

I've just joined the New Vic as the Associate Director working on the Hoard Festival and I'm trying to get the word out about our playwriting competition that we're running as part of the 6 week new writing festival next year.

If you know of any writers/ artists who would be interested in this opportunity please pass it on!

Our deadline in 28th November for entries.

Thank you!

Gemma 

Here are all the details:

Staffordshire Hoard Playwriting Competition

• Have your play produced by the New Vic Theatre as part of the HOARD Festival.

In Summer 2015 the New Vic is producing a festival of plays inspired by the Staffordshire Hoard

Part of this festival will be 12 five minute monologues that will be delivered to the audience in the front of house area prior to the main house shows.

These plays will be intimate, one actor pieces that could be performed to an audience at their table in the bar. Writers already confirmed include: Samuel Adamson and April De Angelis.

The competition brief:

We are inviting writers to submit plays written from the point of view of someone associated with an item or items from the Staffordshire Hoard: the craft worker who made it, the person who owned it, the one who buried it…

The play should be no longer than five minutes and written to be performed by one actor. The character can be modern or historical, fact or fiction, but the play must be presented in the form of a dramatic monologue.

Entries should be submitted with an entry form. Your submission will be judged anonymously. There are no restrictions on age or experience. The winning entry will be announced at the end of January 2015.

You will find the entry form and all our terms and conditions on our website:

http://www.newvictheatre.org.uk/hoard

The Prize:

The winning play will be performed by a professional actor and directed by the Associate Director of the New Vic: Gemma Fairlie. It will be performed throughout the six week festival to audiences prior to seeing the main stage shows. The writer will be invited to attend guest night of the Festival at the New Vic.

The Festival:

The Hoard is a major festival of plays developed by the New Vic Theatre in partnership with the National Theatre Studio, inspired by the Staffordshire Hoard and made possible by an Arts Council England Exceptional Award.

Historian Michael Wood is Patron of the festival which will include plays on our main stage, a new theatre-documentary, a studio season, digital pieces played Front-of-house and in our gardens, community participation, and the series of 12, five-minute ‘Plays at Your Table’ performed by our ensemble of actors.

The Staffordshire Hoard

The largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork ever found, anywhere in the world, it was discovered in a field near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England on 5 July 2009. It consists of more than 3,500 items that are nearly all martial or warlike in character.

The artefacts date to the time of the Kingdom of Mercia. Since the find, a research and conservation programme, headed up by leading and notable experts in the field, has been launched and will be underway for many years.

Judging:

The competition will be judged by New Vic Artistic Director, Theresa Heskins, and the Associate Director of Hoard, Gemma Fairlie.

Deadline for entries:

All entries should be submitted to the New Vic no later than 28 November 2014. Please send entries to hoard@newvictheatre.org.uk