East London university launches competition to find new writers

The University of East London has launched a competition to find the best emerging young writers.

The competition is called Stage Directions and is open to all young people aged 16-18 years studying in schools, colleges or youth theatre groups in Greater London. It aims to support emerging new writers.

The competition is free to enter. Aspiring playwrights are asked to write a one-act play of no more than 20 minutes inspired by the sights, sounds, characters, history, myths and/or fiction of east London. Entries should be emailed to stagedirections@uel.ac.uk. Competition organisers Solomon Lennox and Domonic Hingorani will be conducting writing workshops to help support entrants.

A panel will select three entries who will have their work professionally developed in workshops and master classes with theatre professionals. The winning playwright will then see their play produced at the Black Box studio at University Square Stratford (USS) in July 2014.

Liz Pearson, Associate Dean of School of Arts and Digital Industries, said: “We are excited to be launching the Stage Directions competition and are looking forward to working with talented young writers in Writers workshops as well as producing the winning entry for a public performance in the summer of 2014.”

The Competition closes on March 10 2014 with the performance of winning entry at USS to take place on July 23 2014.