Script Submissions

The Royal Court is dedicated to finding the most exciting new plays, underpinned by the history of our open submissions: the year-round promise that anyone writing in English can send us a play; and we’ll read and respond to every single one.

From 2025, we’re renewing this promise, including committing to a three-month response time on all submissions, and launching a new Open Submissions Festival. While we can only actively provide feedback and support for a small number of the plays and writers we’re most excited about, we’re ensuring submissions remain a meaningful channel through to our programmes and wider support offer.

The main way to send us a play is through our online portal (information and guidance below), and we’re unable to receive hard copy submissions. However, if you have any access needs which mean that this submissions system is a barrier, please contact literary@royalcourttheatre.com.

 

IS MY SCRIPT ELIGIBLE?

  • Our mission is to stage the most exciting new work being written for theatre – for this reason, we do not accept screenplays, novels, poetry collections or radio plays.
  • We can only accept scripts as a PDF or Word document with a maximum size of 10MB.
  • We are only able to read 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 are unable to accept more than one submission from a writer at any one time.
  • We cannot consider resubmissions or new drafts of plays we have previously read and responded to.
  • We do accept scripts for original musicals, but cannot accept scores or soundtracks as part of first submission.

From an artistic perspective, the aim of our open submissions is to find plays that could be staged at the Royal Court, so we strongly encourage writers to take time to understand the work we do, either by visiting the theatre or exploring our current and past programme online. Our focus is on work that says or does something we haven’t encountered before – whether in terms of form, content or ideas. So we rarely programme adaptations, unless there is a strong argument that the source material has been transformed into something entirely new. Similarly, we are unlikely to programme plays based on historical events or biographical material unless the material is handled in a compellingly contemporary way.

We share these guidelines to give writers the best chance of sharing work that resonates with us.  That said, we are open to being surprised!

 

WHEN WILL I HEAR BACK?

You will receive an automatic acknowledgement of receipt of your script by email.

We only accept enquiries about your script via this email address: literary@royalcourttheatre.com

We are currently working through a backlog of unsolicited submissions, which means responses are taking longer than usual. We currently aim to respond to each play submitted within six months.

 

HOW DO I SUBMIT MY SCRIPT?

Please click here to send us your script.

 

Having problems submitting your script? Here are some things to try:

  • If possible, try submitting on a laptop or desktop rather than through a tablet or mobile.
  • Try using an alternative internet browser.
  • In the last instance, the Captcha form sometimes struggles with specific characters (for example: & or %) so if possible, try removing them from your form.

If after trying these, you’re still having problems, please contact us on the email address above.

 

How we store your data

We take data protection seriously and hereby undertake to look after all personal data in accordance with General Data Protection Regulation which came into force in May 2018 or any forthcoming data protection legislation. As part of our unsolicited script reading process, all personal data related to submissions will be stored securely on our server indefinitely and access limited to the artistic department, who manage  script reading. The justification for keeping this data is legitimate interest, as we may need to contact writers about the script they have submitted or future work. This information will not be shared with third parties. Scripts will only be stored if they are recommended for a further read by the Literary Department. You have the right to request access to your personal data at any time and can ask to be removed from the database. Please click here for full details of our privacy policy.