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Billie Wins RSC 37 Plays Competition
Billie Collins, Squad grad and former Coordinator, is one of the 37 winners of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s nationwide search for new plays with their play Beltane:
‘A wood. Now. A sprite befriends a teenager as the future of the woods hangs in the balance.’
The project, launched to mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, closed in January and attracted over 2,000 submissions. An initial longlist of 350 plays was whittled down to a total of 71 which were then shortlisted for commendation. Erica Whyman, RSC acting artistic director, said: “Every one of the shortlisted plays deserves attention and a production, so the decision-making was really hard. We chose the 37 to represent the widest range of ideas, voices and stories, deliberately including plays by accomplished writers alongside plays that showed enormous promise by first-time playwrights.”
Each play will receive a staged reading at an RSC associate theatre and in Stratford at The Other Place, with writers receiving dramaturgical support to take their play to the next draft.