The North East Theatre Consortium (NETC) is made up of three venues in the North East and New Writing North, the writing development agency for the region. Managed by New Writing North, The Customs House in South Shields, Queen’s Hall Arts Centre in Hexham and Darlington Arts Centre have come together to develop and produce the best new writing from the North East, and tour it in the region and nationally.
 
The project was instigated by New Writing North, who recognised that there were relatively few opportunities for writers in the region to get their plays produced professionally. At the same time, venues from the region were interested in programming North East writers on their stages.
 
Over the past two years, the NETC has produced and toured two new plays: Carina Rodney’s Pub Quiz, and Margaret Wilkinson’s Queen Bee. The plays toured to each of the partner venues, but also to other venues in the region, including Northern Stage, and in the case of Queen Bee, outside the region at West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Duke’s Theatre in Lancaster. The plays have both been very well received by audiences and the press.
 
For the venues this is their opportunity to have some influence over the production process and to put on high quality drama that will speak to their audiences. For New Writing North this is also an opportunity to help writers from the North East launch or develop their playwriting careers. For this reason, we tour to North East venues, but we also want to make sure the play is seen outside the region and receives as much profile as possible. We want to build on this when developing and producing the next play.
 
We have funding from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to support the consortium over three years. That funding has contributed to the two plays produced so far, so we have Esmée Fairbairn support to produce one more play. This helps enormously with levering other funding to contribute to a full production. We would like to produce the next play in 2011.
 
 
Script development programme
 
In order to identify and develop the next play, we are undertaking an intensive script development programme from January-August 2010, which is open to North East writers.
 
The programme will be run by director Deborah Bruce. Deborah is a well established and well respected theatre director. She directed Fiona Evans’ plays Scarborough (Edinburgh Fringe and The Royal Court) and Geoff Dead: Disco for Sale (New Writing North/Live Theatre) to great critical acclaim. She has just completed a successful run of a new adaptation of Euripedes’ Helen at The Globe Theatre, and has directed many pieces of new writing for theatres across the country including The Royal Court, Bath Theatre Royal, The Gate, Bristol Old Vic and Soho Theatre.
 
We will appoint up to four writers, who will work on developing their own full-length plays. Deborah will support and mentor the selected writers in developing their plays from January-August 2010. This mentoring support will involve some face-to-face contact, as well as email correspondence. By August, we will have developed four full-length plays, and the director, New Writing North, and the consortium members will aim to select select the one we anticipate will be the next consortium play.  Ideally, as long as circumstances permit, Deborah Bruce will direct the selected play.
 
From September 2010, we will start to sell the play for regional and national touring in autumn 2011.  We are very keen to ensure the play receives maximum profile, so depending on the nature of the play, this may mean performing it at the Edinburgh Festival, or touring it to a London venue.
 
 
Provisional timescale
 
November 2009 Promote the opportunity for writers
Early January 2010 NWN, the director and consortium partners select the writers involved in the programme
Late January 2010 Director meets the writers to talk through their ideas
Early March 2010 First draft delivered to the director, New Writing North and consortium partners
Mid March 2010 Four days of script development involving actors and writer led by director. Consortium members see the results of this
Mid March-May 2010 Email correspondence between director and writers to advise on second draft
End of May 2010 Second draft delivered
June-mid July 2010 Work on second draft
Early August 2010 Final plays delivered. The director, NWN and consortium partners select the final play
 
 
To apply for the scheme
 
* Please send a proposal of no more than two pages of a full-length play that you would like to develop as part of the programme.
* Please send the first 20 pages of a full-length script that you have previously written (this should not be the play you want to develop during the scheme)
* Please include a writing CV and a covering letter explaining where you are with your playwriting career and why you think this scheme may help you to develop it.
* Please send four copies of each of these by Friday 15 January to:

 
Please POST applications only. Do not email your submission. It is not possible for us to accept applications delivered by hand.
 
 
Exemptions
 
* Writers must live in the north east of England (Tees Valley, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham)
* We cannot accept writers onto the programme if they have already had a full-length play produced by New Writing North in the past. This does not include people involved in Emerge, Bite Size Theatre or Four Play.