Best playwright: new category for creative writing awards 2013

The Potting Shed, Finborough Theatre (London), January 2011

 

Best playwright for theatre is a new category for entries to the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s Creative Writing Awards 2013.

This category recognises Greene’s contribution to twentieth-century theatre, and offers further scope to enthusiastic writers to express their talents.

 

In their entries to the competition screenplay writers and playwrights must embed the following words somewhere in their dialogue:

“The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window....”

Prose writers must begin with the following words, and continue from there:

“The wind rocked the car, and spray broke across the traffic-lanes and misted the seaward window....”

The new full list of eight categories is:

(1) best prose fiction writer;

(2) best prose thriller writer;

(3) best prose travel writer;

(4) best screenplay writer;

(5) best playwright (for theatre);

(6) best writer of prose, screenplay or play under the age of twenty-one years on 1st April 2013;

(7) best Berkhamstedianwriter of prose, screenplay or play (i.e. a writer who is a pupil at Berkhamsted School on 1st April 2013);

(8) best Old Berkhamstedian writer of prose, screenplay or play (i.e. a writer who is a former pupil atBerkhamsted School on 1st April 2013).

Each entry shall be written mostly in the English language and shall have a title; each prose entry shall be no more than 800 words; each screenplay and play (for theatre) entry shall be typed on no more than four sides of A4 paper in a normal font size (e.g. Times New Roman 11pt).

Full details of the rules and practices for the awards may be seen on the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust’s website.

At recent meetings of the Graham Greene International Festival in Berkhamsted (England, UK) Greene’s work as a playwright was the subject of events led by:

(i) Michael Billington (theatre critic, The Guardian) in a talk titled “Graham Greene in the Theatre” given on Saturday 3rd October 2009, which developed into his chapter “The Plays of Graham Greene” in Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene (editors, Dermot Gilvary and Darren J.N. Middleton; Continuum: London and New York, 2011);

(ii) Dr Joe Spence (historian and Master of Dulwich College) in a talk titled “In and Beyond The Living Room: The Art and Scope of Graham Greene, Dramatist” and in rehearsed readings mainly from The Potting Shed and The Complaisant Lover performed by a company of professional actors on Friday 1st October 2010; the acting company was Sally Knyvette, Philip Battley, Jessica Boyd, Eve Matheson, Isabel Pollen, Michael Palmer, Oliver Norton-Smith and Joe Spence;

(iii) Svetlana Dimčović (theatre director) in a talk titled “Backstage with Greene” given on Saturday 2nd October 2010, when she discussed her production of Greene’s play The Potting Shed at the Finborough Theatre (Earl’s Court, London) in 2010. The show was given an extended run in January 2011, and reviewed in The Guardian by Michael Billington. Cast: Charlie Roe, Zoe Thorne, Cate Debenham-Taylor, Eileen Battye, Malcolm James, Paul Cawley, David Gooderson, Carl Ferguson, Janet Hargreaves, Lorna Jones and Martin Wimbush. Design: Kate Guinness. Lighting: Jessica Glaisher. Sound: Simon Perkin. Direction: Svetlana Dimčović. The production photograph (above) was taken by Tristram Kenton, and shows a scene between Sara (Cate Debenham-Taylor) and James Callifer (Paul Cawley).