Line-up for playwriting festival revealed
SHOW: There Should Be Unicorns at Stage@TheDock
By Rick Lyon, Co-Editor
Middle Child have announced the full programme for a new annual playwriting festival coming to Hull’s Fruit Market in July.
Fresh Ink: Hull Playwriting Festival will be a platform for local writers to create and develop new plays in the city.
Middle Child also hope the festival will attract producers, venues and critics from outside of Hull to experience theatre by artists who may go unnoticed in the current climate.
The 2024 event will run as a pilot, so Middle Child can learn what works best and improve on it for the following years.
Running from July 20-21, the programme will include:
Script-in-hand performances of work-in-progress plays, commissioned for the festival by Rosie Race, Hannah Scorer, Grace Waga Glevey, Marc Graham, Prince Kundai and Andrew Houghton.
Rehearsed readings of scenes by the Middle Child Writers’ Group and an excerpt of Middle Child’s 2025 production by Sid Sagar.
A Play and a Plate events, which offer guests a free meal accompanied by a reading of contemporary new writing.
Writing workshops led by Olivier award-winner Amy Trigg, Travis Alabanza, Yolanda Mercy, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, Alan Lane and Luke Barnes.
Industry talks about PR and marketing for writers, getting an agent, commissioning local work and making a writing career in Hull
A keynote speech by David Byrne, artistic director of the Royal Court and University of Hull alumnus, about the state of new writing in the UK.
‘HOPEFUL’: Paul Smith
Each event is individually ticketed, ranging from free for industry talks and A Play and a Plate, to £5 for workshops and pay what you decide for script sharings.
Paul Smith, artistic director of Middle Child, said: “Fresh Ink is a timely intervention at a time when producing new plays feels more challenging than ever.
“We’ve worked hard to create a space that feels hopeful, that supports writers to dream big and which invites audiences to feed directly into the creation of new work, made with their city in mind.
“There is something for everyone at this festival, from seasoned theatre lovers to those who want to peek behind the curtain for the first time and see how new plays are developed.
“Our workshop programme is led by some of the most exciting voices in the UK new writing scene, and the six featured new plays are testament to the incredible quality that exists in this city.
“We can’t wait to welcome Hull along to this first iteration and are delighted to work alongside co-founders Wykeland to bring Fresh Ink to life, together supporting talent development in the city.”
Dominic Gibbons, managing director of Wykeland Group, said: “Wykeland are delighted to be the co-founders and sponsors of the new Fresh Ink: Hull Playwriting Festival.
“We approached Middle Child following their highly successful production There Should Be Unicorns, which we sponsored and they performed at Stage@TheDock in the summer of 2022, to see if we could work together to create something that would have a deep cultural impact on the city and the people in it.
“Fresh Ink gives the opportunity for writers of all levels to expand their skill set and have their work performed at Stage@TheDock, a venue we opened in 2016 with the aim of it being used as a platform to develop new and exciting work.”
The six new commissions were selected from 130 entrants, who responded to an open call in November 2023 for writers with “a meaningful connection to Hull”.
Rosie Race and Hannah Scorer have both written a 70-minute play, Grace Waga Glevey and Marc Graham a 30-minute piece and Prince Kundai and Andrew Houghton a 15-minute excerpt of a larger idea.
A company of actors will perform second drafts of the respective scripts in a marquee on Stage@TheDock.
Tickets are available through the Middle Child website, middlechildtheatre.co.uk/fresh-ink.