“It’s really terrible for playwrights right now,” says Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder, co-artistic director of new writing company Box of Tricks. Amid declining commissions and threatened literary departments, there has been a spate of gloomy statements about playwriting, with much of the discussion focused on London. Outside the capital, however, smaller companies are finding creative ways to support playwrights.
In Manchester, Box of Tricks has brought together hundreds of northern writers through its PlayMakers Network, initially set up in response to the pandemic. The network provides support, guidance, feedback and connection, as well as free hot-desking and workshop space for members. It runs targeted programs for playwrights, the latest of which is Accelerate: a nine-month development program for northern writers over 35, culminating in work-in-progress performances at Home in January.
As Tyrrell-Pinder explains, Accelerate was created to address the “strange middle ground” that older writers find themselves in, “where you’ve been doing it for a while but now you’re too old for the young playwrights’ plans.” The company’s data showed there was a decline in engagement and opportunities for those over 35. The twelve selected for the program have a range of experience: there are seasoned screenwriters, artists transitioning into playwriting and a woman who started writing plays for the first time in her 50s. Tyrrell-Pinder hopes the initiative will “change the stories we think are valuable.”
In Hull, Middle Child company is passionate about developing the city’s theatrical ecosystem and tackling the ‘drain of talent’ to the capital, says artistic director Paul Smith. It has offered playwrights a range of free and paid development opportunities, including scratch cards, free writing and rehearsal space and workshop support. This summer it is scaling up its ambitions with Fresh Ink, a new playwriting festival sharing stories by, about and for the people of Hull.
“We know how hard it is to get your second or third job because theaters are often looking for the newest name, the youngest name or the first writer,” says Smith. The festival focuses on six new assignments selected from an open call. These scripts will be shared in scratch format, in the hope that Middle Child or other companies will pick them up for full productions. In addition, the festival offers support to writers of all ages and career stages. Smith hopes Fresh Ink will “become part of the cultural agenda – not just in Hull, but nationally”.
Ali Pritchard, outgoing artistic director of Alphabetti theater in Newcastle, hopes to make a similar national mark. Since its founding in 2012, Alphabetti has been a miniature powerhouse in the field of local talent development. Pritchard says that “Northeast artists rely on Alphabetti” as a testing ground for work that will then end up in larger theaters. One of the most distinctive features of the theatre’s programming model is its pattern of three-week main performances – something almost unheard of on this scale outside the outskirts of Edinburgh. As Pritchard explains, these longer runs have numerous benefits: breathing room for artists, more time to develop the audience and the opportunity to invest in access measures such as subtitling and audio description.
The model is not without challenges. While some shows have an average audience capacity of 85-90%, others are stuck at just 20%, which Pritchard says is “pretty heartbreaking as an artist.” But these longer runs also enable Alphabetti’s writing program, which Pritchard describes as “the feather in our cap.” During the first week of a main show, playwrights are invited to see the show and write a short drama in response. From these submitted scripts, one will be selected for a week of paid development with a writer and an actor, and then shown as a curtain-raiser in the final week of the series. In many cases, this first opportunity leads to further support.
One thing these artistic leaders agree on is the importance of the process, not just the product. Speaking of Accelerate, Tyrrell-Pinder says the company didn’t want writers to panic: “I have to produce something eventually!” Allowing a period of dedicated writing time between the development sessions and the final exchange takes the pressure off. Meanwhile, one of the intentions behind Fresh Ink is to “let people see behind the curtain”. This grew out of Middle Child’s scratch performances, which have attracted a majority of audiences from outside the arts, and which “show a clear hunger to see work at an early stage”.
These initiatives all demonstrate the agility of smaller companies. “It’s difficult for some larger theaters to take that first risk with an unknown voice,” Smith says. Pritchard suggests that large theater organizations are “like an oil tanker: if they have to change their style of working, it takes a long time for them to turn around”. Alphabetti, on the other hand, is a “dinghy” (“I was actually going to say a yacht,” laughs Pritchard, “but we’re definitely not stylish enough to be a yacht!”) that can move much faster in response to what’s happening elsewhere happens.
But what it ultimately comes down to is getting work on stages. Smith emphasizes that Fresh Ink “only has value if the work exists beyond the festival,” while Pritchard is keen to highlight the number of response program writers who have produced full-length plays. These include Charlotte Small, whose short response piece was developed into a longer script that was then performed as the main show, and Steve Byron and Gary Kitching, creators of the popular two-handers Bacon Knees and Sausage Fingers. For Tyrell-Pinder, the next challenge after the Accelerate program is finding ways to stage the writers’ plays.
As we approach the general election, everyone I speak to is adamant about the need for a new government to support the arts. Tyrrell-Pinder criticizes the “systematic devaluation of the arts” under the Tories, while Smith and Pritchard both observe how much harder things have become in the years since their companies were founded. As Smith puts it, the arguments for funding the arts have been made time and time again; now is the time for action. “The talent is there, the ability is there, the statistics are there – everything is there except the increase in funding.”