The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama is bringing all its new writing projects together under one umbrella – Writing House.
Alongside its flagship NEW writing festival, the College is launching Writing House workshops, giving new writers and directors the time, space and resources for new writing development.
Writers and directors will be funded to workshop with the College’s acting students to develop ideas for new plays from their very earliest stages. These projects will then either be commissioned by the College into full productions, or form part of the development process for new work elsewhere.
“The workshops will bring together an eclectic range of writers and directors,” said the College’s dramaturg, Jude Christian. “We’re inviting artists to diversify the canon, and empower the next generation of actors.”
The first workshops will start in May with writers and directors Sonali Bhattacharyya and Tinuke Craig, and Chris Monks and John O’Hara. Welsh writer and Bruntwood Prize finalist, Alan Harris will also be working with director Adele Thomas.
Writing House Workshops will build and develop the College’s ground-breaking NEW festival, which brings some of the UK’s most exciting writers and directors to work with its final year students and create challenging, provocative and ambitious contemporary theatre.
“We’re really proud of the proliferation of brilliant female artists involved in RCWMD’s new writing work,” Jude continues, “and we’re working hard to redress other historical imbalances in the voices which are heard on stage; to ensure that the theatre we’re making, and the people making it, are richly representative of Wales, the UK, and the world we live in today.”