Call Out for Lusophone Playwrights

The Royal Court Theatre is piloting a new script submissions process for writers working in languages other than English. Each year we will accept submitted plays in a new language for a specific window of time. This year, we begin the process with a call out for Lusophone writers, open to writers working in Portuguese wherever they might be based in the world. Submitting a play to us is often the starting point of a relationship with a playwright and we are incredibly excited to discover writers and artists whose work is new to us.

The Royal Court will be working with a specialist team of readers in Portuguese who are also theatre professionals (directors, translators, actors, theatre-makers and dramaturgs) to read and discuss the work we receive. The script window might be a starting point for relationships and conversations with writers who go on to be involved in other parts of our International programme. Whether this is through the translation of plays into English, residencies at the Royal Court or participation in writers groups.

Full information about criteria for submission is available below, should you have any questions not covered here please contact us on international@royalcourttheatre.com

This is a document to share please pass on to anyone you think would be interested or feel free to distribute through networks of writers working in Portuguese.

Criteria for submission:

• We accept one play per writer
• Writers must be aged 18 or over to submit a play
• We only accept full length plays – as a guide, we suggest this would be a minimum of around 50 pages or 25-30 pages for a monologue
• We only accept original work for theatre and do not read screenplays, novels, poetry collections, radio plays or adaptations
• We do not read musicals nor historical/biographical plays as we so rarely produce this work
• We do not accept plays in translation, only in their original language
• We accept plays in specified languages regardless of where in the world a writer lives and works and what languages they speak
• We only accept work submitted by a living writer themselves rather than through agents and other advocates
• We focus on work that addresses the current moment at the Royal Court, so do not accept work produced over five years ago
• We accept both plays that have been produced and those that have not, but do not accept work that has already been produced in the UK
• We do accept work that has been collectively authored or co-authored, but it must be submitted with the full permission and knowledge of all of the authors. This is not a call out primarily focused on scripts that are the document of a devising process, and not designed as a search for existing productions looking to tour.
• We do accept works authored by playwrights of all countries without distinction (not only those where Portuguese is one of its official languages, i.e. Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Macau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé & Príncipe), as long as the play follows all criteria listed above.

List of variations

How to submit:

• You will receive acknowledgement of receipt of your submission.
• Your script will be sent to one of our language-specialist readers for an initial read.
• If recommended for further reading it will be second read by another member of the reading team.
• A proportion of work will also be third read and discussed at a script meeting

We aim to respond to all writers who’ve submitted work within three months of the window closing. With one of the following outcomes:

• An individual response about your play letting you know that we’re not able to take it further.
• An individual response to begin a conversation with you about your work – to set up an online meeting, invite you to send us future work. Our conversation might lead to your script being considered for translation into English so it can be read more widely here; being invited into a writers project or a residency here at the Royal Court; this script or future work being developed towards commission or production.

The Royal Court Theatre is based in London in the UK. We focus on the production, development and commissioning of the work of living playwrights at all stages of their career. We stage 12-15 productions in our two theatre spaces each year and run a wide range of writers groups, residencies, attachments and other opportunities for writers. This project is part of our International Programme of work. We are piloting this script submission process with a view to accepting work in a different language each year over the next few years. Future windows will be advertised on our website.

The window submission will open on Monday 3 October and close on Monday 24 October at 12noon.

If you have any questions please contact us on international@royalcourttheatre.com