2020 Finalists
From an incredible 1,169 submissions, we present our amazing 7 finalists.
Chinonyerem has also worked as an Assistant Director/Director for Bristol Old Vic and Theatre503,and was due to be directing ‘Braids’ at Live Theatre, Newcastle in April 2020.
Chinonyerem Odimba also teaches in theatres and universities across the UK.
Describe your play in a sentence:
This is a story that takes in the shifts of both attitudes and violence, in is a new folklore style, it confounds any ideas of Black British presence, and follows the hopes, dreams, and fears of generations of Black women starting with a girl called Gabe.
Her plays include Midnight Movie (Royal Court/Berlin Theatertreffen Stueckemarkt 2020); While You Are Here (The Place/Dance East); The Trick (Bush Theatre, national tour); Spooky Action At A Distance (Royal Court/RWCMD); The Curtain (Young Vic Taking Part); Stone Face, and Silent Planet (both Finborough Theatre).
Game text/story design includes The Delegation (Coney/Точка доступа); A Day In The Life Of Someone Else (Oscar Mike).
Installations include Movimento/Variations (36 маймуни/Bulgarian National Theatre Festival); Your Future (HAU/Sophiensaele/Ballhaus Ost/Camden People’s Theatre).
Dramaturgy includes How To Win Against History (Young Vic).
Commissions include National Theatre Connections, Bush Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Sheffield Theatres, PappyShow. She was artist-in-residence at the National Theatre of Greece 2017.
Awards include Jerwood/Royal Court New Playwright Award 2019 (with Jasmine Lee-Jones), Bruntwood Prize shortlist 2019, Berlin Theatertreffen Stueckemarkt selection 2020.
She says: ‘It's hard to put into words why I write. I want every play of mine to be an emergency. There's something about the ritual of emergency, an emergency happening at the same time in the same room every evening, that feels like an essential response to the moment we live in.’
Describe your play in a sentence:
Red Sky at Night is about living as an immigrant in London, capitalism, aliens, and other things that are probably going to kill us.
Describe your play in a sentence:
The play is about love and resistance in Cairo.
Describe your play in a sentence:
Set during calving season on a West Midlands farm, three people navigate their pastoral duty to the land, to the animals, and to each other.
Describe your play in a sentence:
Over one evening, four virgins and two non-virgins try to answer the question that has been repeatedly asked of them, 'What do you want?’
Describe your play in a sentence:
...blackbird hour is a call to arms to loving oneself when love has evaporated from the body.
Acting credits include: ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ and ‘Measure for Measure’ (Royal Shakespeare Company), ‘Shakespeare within the Abbey’ and ‘The Sonnet Walks’ (Shakespeare's Globe), ‘Goth Weekend’ (The Stephen Joseph Theatre and Live Theatre), ‘The Who’s Tommy’ (Tour), ‘The Glass Menagerie’ (Nottingham Playhouse), ‘Unprecedented’ (BBC and Headlong) and ‘Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’ (Universal).
Amy’s essay ‘An Ode to Improvisation (and Poehler and Fey)’ features in the book ‘Feminist’s Don’t Wear Pink (and other lies)’, curated by Scarlett Curtis and published by Penguin. In 2014 Amy was a regular guest writer for Access Magazine. She is known for her one woman sketch 'The Rebrand' for which she won 'Colchester New Comedian of the Year 2016’. In 2020 Amy wrote two short digital plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Midsummer Festival.
REASONS YOU SHOULD(N’T) LOVE ME is Amy’s first full-length play.
Describe your play in a sentence:
Juno was born with Spina bifida and is now clumsily navigating her twenties amidst street healers, love, loneliness and the feeling of being an unfinished project.