Theatre Royal Stratford East has partnered up with Perfect Pitch for a scheme which will see a new British writing team awarded with a £12,000 prize fund.

Both theatre companies have teamed up to introduce the Perfect Pitch Award for Musical Theatre Writing in a bid to find the best new writing talent.

The scheme encourages writers to apply as individuals. Successful candidates will be paired up with a collaborator to work on a 10 minute pitch of a new musical.

The pitch will then be presented in front of a panel of experienced industry judges.

The final pitching event will take place in February next year. The winning team will be awarded the £12,000 prize fund and will be tasked with writing a full draft of a new show in a 12-month period, with a view to having the piece presented in a professional staged reading or production of the piece.

Andy Barnes, Executive Director at Perfect Pitch said: “We have been chatting with the team at Theatre Royal Stratford East for a while about working together on a project and after we invited Kerry to sit on the judging panel for our last Award, it felt like a natural progression to collaborate together this time around.”

Kerry Michael, Artistic Director at Theatre Royal Stratford East added: “Creating new musical theatre is a key part of the work we do here so we are always looking to discover new artists to work with.

“We’re delighted to be partnering Perfect Pitch on this project and hope to find original storytellers that want, like us, to re-fresh the way new musicals are presented.”

For more information on the application process, visit stratfordeast.com/perfect-pitch.

The final date for applications is July 20.