Bruntwood winner Anna Jordan has urged fellow playwrights to enter the competition, claiming the initiative is a “springboard” that gives talent a boost to their careers and creativity.
Jordan was named the winner of the 2013 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting last week. The award aims to discover and promote the best writing for theatre. Jordan won for her play Yen, described as a work about “lost childhood, lost innocence, love and violence”.
The writer – whose credits include Stay Happy Keep Smiling at the Soho Theatre and Coming Home at the Bush Theatre – receives £16,000 and a year-long attachment with the Royal Exchange in Manchester, which runs the award along with property company Bruntwood.
Speaking to The Stage, Jordan said: “I would say [to other writers] that you have to enter to have any chance of winning it. If you have a play, enter it. If you don’t have a play, but want to write one, this gives you a fantastic deadline and something to work towards.”
Jordan, who is artistic director of Without a Paddle Theatre, said this is a “pretty tough world for someone trying to make it as a writer”, and added: “You need all the help you can get. In the most part, awards such as Bruntwood are free to enter. And the level of support you get, particularly with the Bruntwood prize, is just fantastic considering you don’t have to pay anything.”
Jordan’s play will now be developed with the Royal Exchange. A production of it is expected to be staged in 2015. Last weekend, Yen was also presented as part of Theatre Renegade’s Courting Drama event at the Bush Theatre.
Alongside Jordan, three other writers have each received £8,000 through the Bruntwood initiative. They are Katherine Chandler, whose entry was the play Bird, Chris Urch, who wrote Rolling Stone, and Luke Norris, who submitted the play So Here We Are.
Jenni Murray, chair of the judges, said: “It’s been an extraordinary shortlist this year, and very difficult to decide on a winner. Yen is a play of great depth and relevance. In an incredibly dark world, each of the characters are drawn with beautiful empathy and a humanity, which stood out to all the judges.”
Nick Hern Books plans to publish each of the plays that receive a production at the Royal Exchange.