Be an Angel - join a radical new scheme to 'buy time' for struggling new playwrights to write!

Paul Anthony Morris was the first playwright chosen for the scheme in 2008 and, with our help, completed his new play IDENTITY. Pericles Snowdon became the second playwright to win the award in 2009 and completed an extraordinary piece on Romany gypsies, THEY WHO LAY IN THE FIELDS LIKE BEASTS. Kenneth Emson followed in 2010 writing WHITE about his home town in Thurrock. Sarah Grochala was our fourth winner in 2011 writing SMOLENSK inspired by the events unfolding after the Polish plane crash on 10 April 2010 and Clara Brennan has completed her year as the fifth winner with her smouldering new play THE VENDOR and we are joined in 2013 by Satinder Chohan planning to write about motherhood, bodies and blood ties between women across nations.

The levels of support are as follows:

(equivalent to £20 a week)

• will receive monthly email bulletins from Satinder reporting on the adventures and misadventures of the writing process giving a rare peep through the keyhole at a writer's life
• will be invited to 3 events a year to meet Satinder during a workshop or for a chatty drink
• will be invited to a performed reading of the final draft where feedback is more than welcome
• will be invited to a preview night if the play is staged
• will be invited to the opening night and party if the play is staged
• will be credited in the programme for the first and all future productions of the play.

(equivalent to £10 a week)

• will receive monthly email bulletins from Satinder
• will be invited to 1 event during the year to meet Satinder and catch up
• will be invited to a performed reading of the final draft where feedback is more than welcome
• will be invited to the opening night and party if the play is staged
• will be credited in the programme for the first and all future productions of the play.

• will receive monthly email bulletins from Satinder
• will be invited to the opening night and party if the play is staged
• will be credited in the programme for the first and all future productions of the play.

At the end of the process all Satinder's supporters will have a finished play and will be the 'parents' of that play.

To become an Angel, please contact Sofie Mason on sofie@offwestend.com or call 020 7277 1511 to talk it through - thank you!

Previous Winners

PAUL MORRIS - Winner 2008
The story so far... Paul directed a reading of his new play Gifted at the Bush Theatre last year and has just completed the research & development of his new play Conundrum at the Bush theatre with an exciting line up that featured Anthony Ofoegbu, Arun Ghosh, Surinder Sandhu and Shane Shambhu among others. Paul will begin preliminary talks in May 2013 with a number of venues for a future production. In July Paul will begin writing the second edition of his trilogy - an adaptation of the Judaic, Christian and Islamic narrative of the Patriarch Abraham. The adaptation will deconstruct the mainstream religious narrative by retelling this epic story solely from the perspective of Sarai, Abraham's first wife. Updates of Paul's progress will be tweeted with bi monthly emails to his Angels.

PERICLES SNOWDON - Winner 2009
The story so far...Thanks to his angels, Pericles' piece on the Roma during the fall of the Soviet Union, They Who Lay In The Fields Like Beasts, was requested by the National Theatre's artistic director Nick Hytner and is now patiently awaiting workshop at the NT Studio. In 2012, his short play Leviathan performed for sell-out crowds at the Arcola and his latest play The Cat's Mother thrived at the Courtyard Theatre with a 5-star review. Pericles recently submitted his first television comedy Beauty Sleeping to the BBC and is meeting with publishers for his long-awaited children's novel, Nod.

KENNY EMSON - Winner 2010
The story so far... Kenny has been writing for Doctors, Holby City and EastEnders. He won the Theatre Centre's Adrienne Benham Award (White was the play they read, so again a million thanks to his Angels!) and the BBC Radio 3 aired his short radio play, The Verb. He finished a short commission for Nabokov Theatre which premiered at the High Tide Festival last year and has two plays about to be produced in the Eastern region. Parkway Dreams is touring throughout April and May 2013 and England Street goes on at the Oxford Playhouse in April 2013. He is also developing a new radio script about carp fishing, a co-authored piece with BBC Writersroom about the final 24 hours of a murdered girlÕs life. He is under commission to High Tide and Supporting Wall Theatre for productions to take place in 2014.

SARAH GROCHALA - Winner 2011
The story so far... The story so far... Sarah's previous play S-27 was produced in Toronto last year and Sarah is now working with Headlong.

And from our Foster Children...

ISHY DIN
The story so far... "After an incredible start to 2012 - going into rehearsals with "Snookered" and then following it around the country whilst on tour - I have now taken up my Pearson Residency at the Manchester Royal Exchange. Alongside developing my craft as a writer, I will be developing a script with the hope of being commissioned at the end of the year. I have also been involved in a short piece for Eclipse theatre inspired by "A Rage in Harlem" which should be airing soon on The Space website and one of the satellite channels. And I've also written a short film that is in search of funding!

I'm about to start writing the second in my trilogy of plays for Tamasha, ("Snookered" being the first) - the play is set in a mini-cab office and is called "Approaching Empty" folowing the lives of a group of middle aged mostly Asian cab drivers. My hope is to give an insight into a different generation of men from those in "Snookered".

I'm also meeting with a number of Film and TV production companies to start the ball rolling towards fulfilling some more of my very long list of ambitions!"

JANE WAINWRIGHT
The story so far... Jane Wainwright still can't get away from her Derbyshire roots. Her plays range from virtual online worlds to male flashers and eighty year old protesters - but they've all got the northern dialect. She studied English and theatre at the University of Warwick before joining the Royal Court's Young Writers Group and subsequently being invited to their Invitation Group for Playwrights and then their Supergroup of 12 specially selected writers. After they set her free, she went on to have rehearsed readings of her plays Barrow Hill, Photos of You Sleeping and In World at the Hampstead and the Finborough theatres. She was nominated and subsequently shortlisted for the Writersroom 10 scheme, the BBC Heartlands new writing search and her play In World made the final eight of last year's PapaTango Playwriting Competition. She is currently rewriting Barrow Hill which (thanks to the generosity of Sofie and Diana) will run at the Finborough Theatre this August.

PHIL DAVIES
The story so far... Phil won the Rod Hall Memorial Award in 2008 from which he gained an attachment with Paines Plough. Subsequently, his first full-length play Adjusted was performed at the Interplay Europe Young Writers Festival in Utrecht. Phil's short play The Makings was one of three winning entries in ATG Churchill Theatre's Write Here Right Now 2009 competition, where it received a rehearsed reading. Adjusted was also the featured play at one of the Institute of Contemporary Arts' Lab events. In 2010 Phil's monologue Up The Dale was performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre Studio as part of Paines Plough's 'Come To Where I'm From' project. He is now working on Threads with the help of Sofie and Diana.