The Young Writers Festival

The Young Writers Festival will include staged readings of a new play by Alistair McDowall on 2 and 3 March, Ain’t No Law Against Fish ‘N’ Chips by Rose Lewenstein on 9 and 10 March, Reflection by Rianna Mitchell-Henry on 30 and 31 March and Where the Shot Rabbits Lay by Brad Birch on13 and 14 April.

Writers aged 25 and under were asked to submit a full-length play back in Spring 2011 with no restrictions or guidelines on content. Over 300 plays were submitted and each one read by a team of 17 readers, made up of playwrights, directors, Royal Court staff and previous Young Writers festival winners.

This year, the Young Writers Festival was opened up to a younger age group, accepting submissions from ages eight to 25 in order to uncover stories from the UK’s younger population. Supported by John Lyon’s Charity, the Royal Court worked with 75 young people from 18 schools delivering a six-week writing programme under the tutelage of writers Debbie Tucker Green, EV Crowe and Nick Payne to create a fully-realized play that would be suitable for submission to the Young Writers Festival.

The young people’s plays will be performed in a reading on 17 March, with seven short plays from the 8-11 age group and three plays from 12-15 age group. Rianna Mitchell- Henry’s play Reflection, written when she was 17, will have a full reading on 30 and 31 March.