With our summer script window opening for submissions on Friday 1 August, I thought it was a suitable moment to update you on all things New Writing at the Mercury.
Firstly, we’ll now be using only the two annual script windows (January and August) to select writers for our Mercury Writers programme. If you’d like to be considered, please mention this clearly in your submission email.
The script window isn’t just an opportunity for us to find new plays, it’s a way to discover brilliant, original voices. It’s very rare that a play goes from an unsolicited submission straight onto a stage. But in the six years we’ve been running the Writers programme, we’ve produced five of our writers’ plays, with two more programmed this current season. It’s a fantastic way to start a relationship with the Mercury.
Speaking of the Writers programme, it’s incredibly exciting that, in the first season under our amazing new Artistic Director, Natasha Rickman, we’ll have three Mercury Originals written by Writers programme alumni.
In June, Flumps by Emma Pallet was staged in our Studio and received fantastic responses from both audiences and the press. The play was developed during our 2023 Writers programme.
Tassa Deparis’s new play Swallow The Lake will be produced in the Studio this October. This remarkable piece of new writing was also developed on last year’s programme – and must have had the quickest turnaround from first draft to production we’ve ever seen (less than a year!).
And finally, the incredible and award-winning Ava Pickett has adapted AK Blakemore’s novel The Manningtree Witches, which will be staged in the main house. Ava was part of our very first Writers group during Covid-19 and has since gone on to win multiple awards, write for TV shows like The Great and Ten Pound Poms, and recently had her debut play 1536 staged at the Almeida. This will be the very first Mercury Original staged in our main house – a huge milestone that speaks to the ambition and importance we place on new writing.
We want our writers to work across all our stages.
We want our Mercury Originals to sit proudly alongside the panto as an unmissable highlight of our seasons.
We want them to be an event.
That’s why we’re holding the Mercury Creatives Festival on Saturday 9 August – a celebration of new work, creative beginnings, and bold futures. Expect workshops, talks, masterclasses, and panel events. It’s a great way to meet our team and hear from some of the incredible artists who’ve come through our development programmes. I’ll be speaking on a panel about Essex writing – so please come and say hello if you can make it.
And if not, I can’t wait to read your scripts!
Be bold, be brilliant, be yourself.
Kenny Emson
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