Deadline
for entries: November 30, 2018
Showcase your work at the National Arts
Festival
The National Arts Festival and Distell have
joined forces to seek out and showcase fresh storytellers and new voices with
the launch of the Distell National Playwright Competition. The competition, for
debut playwrights who haven’t staged their work before, is run in honour of
Adam and Rosalie Small, the husband and wife duo who made a significant impact
on South Africa’s literary, philosophical and educational landscape. The
winning writer will receive a cash prize and see their work produced at the
2019 National Arts Festival, the country’s premier arts showcase and a
shop-window for producers and theatres from across the world.
The Call to Enter
It’s time to shine. Writers and
storytellers who’ve been looking for an opportunity to level up and put their
skills to the test should get into action. The competition calls for powerful
stories that promote diversity and inclusivity – in any of South Africa’s 11
official languages. This is a celebration of talent, but also of transformation
– in the internal and external sense of the word.
"South Africa is endowed with great
talent in the Arts and we see this initiative as an opportunity to recognise
talent, start conversations, encourage freedom of thought and imagination.
Importantly, and particularly given our history as a country, we see this
competition as a vehicle to bring people together by overcoming and promoting
our rich cultural diversity,” says Bridgitte Backman, Corporate and Regulatory
Affairs Director at Distell.
-This competition is open to all South
Africans over the age of 18 years;
-Artists need to submit a synopsis of a
play and a ten-page writing sample. This doesn’t need to be a completed play;
-All ideas must be original, unpublished
and unproduced;
-To be eligible for consideration, the work
needs to have a strong focus on inclusivity and social cohesion.
Says National Arts Festival Executive
Producer, Ashraf Johaardien, “an integral part of the vision for this award is
to provide support in the space that exists between the idea for a play and the
final draft of that play for production. In this way, the competition is
intended as a resource for both new writers and theatres interested in
developing and programming contemporary South African work.”
After submissions are in and the
adjudication process is complete, five plays will be selected for a process of
development, which includes workshops, masterclasses and/or mentorships. The
winning play will be announced and awarded a production budget, which will see
it present as a premiere on the Main Programme or Arena at the National Arts
Festival in Makhanda (Grahamstown) in June, 2019.
The deadline for submissions is 17h00 on November
30, 2018, and the shortlisted scripts will be announced and go into the
incubation process in early 2019.
For more information, visit
https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/distell-competition/
To link direct to the NAF site click on the
large banner that runs across the top of this blog or visit
https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za or visit Facebook:
www.facebook.com/nationalartsfestival; Twitter: @artsfestival or Instagram:
nationalartsfestival)
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