Free to enter, The 2011 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, top prize: £16,000 (UK/ Ireland)

Deadline: 6 June 2011

The Bruntwood Prize is the biggest national competition for playwriting. It is a search for great plays and great writers. We are looking for scripts that are original and unperformed, by writers of any experience. You can find out about what you might win below. The Prize is open for entries from the 31st January until the deadline on the 6th June 2011.

Entering your play for the competition is simple and straightforward. We only accept entries online – through this website – so it can all be done right here.

This section of the website tells you everything you need to know about the Prize: what kind of work we accept, how to enter and what happens after you enter and if you win.

If you are ready to submit your play, click here.

Entry

1. The competition is open to anyone resident in the UK and Ireland. *
2. Entrants must be sixteen or over. There is no upper age limit.
3. Scripts must be submitted anonymously under a pseudonym.
4. We can only accept one entry per person.
5. The deadline for entry is 6pm on Monday 6th June 2011. Any entries received after this time will not be read.
6. We are only able to accept entries submitted online. No paper entries will be considered within the judging process. Please do not submit any supporting materials including CDs, photographs, reviews or any audiovisual material.
7. Scripts must be submitted by the writer themselves and not by an agent or any other third party.

Scripts

1. The play must be an original, unperformed and unproduced piece of work, in theatre and in any medium. ∞
2. The play must be an hour long or more in playing time.
3. We do not accept translations, adaptations of other pieces of work or musicals. We also do not accept plays written exclusively for younger audiences.
4. The entrant must exclusively own and control all copyright and all other related rights to the submitted script.
5. The submitted play must be available for production and unattached to any other theatre or company. Any scripts that have been professionally optioned, produced or published will be disqualified.
6. We do accept plays co-authored by more than one writer. Please ensure that only one entry is submitted with one set of contact details.
7. If you have won a prize in the previous Bruntwood competition, you may not enter a script. However, you may enter if you have been shortlisted or longlisted in the past.

Judging/Prizes

1. All scripts awarded prizes are automatically under option to the Royal Exchange for a period of eighteen months after the announcement of the awards.
2. If a winning script is produced by the Royal Exchange, the prize money will replace all first production or development fees. However, the standard percentage of box office receipts and rehearsal attendance fees will still be paid to the writer.
3. We regret that no correspondence can be entered into regarding any part of the judging process.
4. The Royal Exchange reserves the right to make any final judgement about entry criteria and awards, including any amendments to the above rules.

* We define resident through your ability to produce, if asked, proof of main address on a driving license, appropriate Inland Revenue document, or if not in possession of these, a phone bill with proof of UK or Irish home address.

∞ Amateur performances do not apply. Unproduced means the play cannot have received a production in any form, anywhere in the world, apart from one rehearsed reading only.

This year the Bruntwood Prize will make the following awards:

* A First Prize of £16,000 – with the offer of a year-long attachment with the Royal Exchange Theatre

* Three Judges’ Awards of £8,000 each.

All four winners will have the opportunity to develop their play at the Royal Exchange with a view to production. In addition, leading publisher Nick Hern Books will publish those plays that go on to receive a production at the Exchange.

We only accept entries online for the Prize, through the entry process on this website. Entry is entirely FREE. To start that process, you will need:

* A pseudonym, a name that’s anything other than your real one. This can be anything you like.

We don’t ask for your real name, so that all entries are judged equally. Your real name should appear nowhere in your application and shouldn’t appear on the play itself. Your pseudonym and the play’s title should appear in the body of the text of your play.

* Your play as a file or document (accepted file types are DOC, DOCX and PDF). You can save this under any name, but you will also be asked for the play’s title.
* A contact email address – if you open a new account to disguise your name, please make sure you check that account regularly.
* A postal address in the UK or Ireland and a contact telephone number.

To submit your play, click here.

More information here.