In conjunction with our production of A TASTE OF HONEY, Shelagh Delaney’s iconic play, the Royal Exchange Theatre is working in partnership with Salford Arts Theatre to support the 2024 Shelagh Delaney Playwriting Prize by offering free writing workshops for female-identifying playwrights.
“The working classes in the gallery have supported the British theatre ever since Elizabethan times. Give them good plays and they will go to the theatre.” – Shelagh Delaney
Shelagh Delaney was a playwright who championed working class women by putting them and their stories centre stage. Her work celebrated and honoured voices from the periphery of society; those who were told they couldn’t take up space.
We will be offering 3 workshops open to female-identifying playwrights, with the aim to create a safe and supportive environment for them to explore their writing practice. These workshops have been curated to spark imaginations, provoke stories and encourage ambitious theatrical ideas. We hope that these workshops inspire applications to the Shelagh Delaney New Writing Award, which is open for submissions until Friday 31st May 2024.
There are 10 places available per workshop, bookable below.
WORKSHOP #1 Emma Baggott: Owning the Ambition of Your Voice, Vision and Imagination
Saturday 23rd March: 10am-1pm
Emma is the director of A TASTE OF HONEY at the Royal Exchange Theatre.
Emma trained at Goldsmiths College and the Young Vic.
Recent credits include: The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Theatre Royal Stratford East); The Snow Queen (Polka Theatre); Under Milk Wood (Sherman Theatre); The Social Care Workers Play (Almeida Theatre); Neville’s Island, Misfits, Stiletto Beach (Queens Theatre Hornchurch); She is Fierce (Royal Shakespeare Company); Leaving, How To Kill Your Mother, Copper & Steel (The Bunker); Normal (Styx); Attempts On Her Life (Royal Conservatoire Scotland); Love Steals Us From Loneliness (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama); Dennis of Penge (Guildhall School of Music and Drama); Pomona, Mr Burns, X, The Christians (LAMDA).
WORKSHOP #2 Zodwa Nyoni: Writing From A Place of Self-Compassion and Joy
Saturday 6th April: 10am-1pm
Please note that this workshop is for female-identifying Global Majority playwrights.
Zodwa Nyoni is a Zimbabwean-born playwright, screenwriter and director.
Her debut play, BOI BOI IS DEAD won the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme. It was also a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2014/15. Since, her plays have been produced in the UK, France, Germany, USA, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Her most recent work, THE DARKEST PART OF THE NIGHT (Kiln Theatre) was shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award and George Devine Award 2021. It was ranked as one of the best plays of 2022 by The Independent (UK). Zodwa’s plays are published by Bloomsbury. In addition, she has contributed to Public Art Encounters: Art, Space and Identity (Routledge ,2018), Telling Our Stories of Home: International Performance Pieces By and About Women (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022), and Black British Queer Plays and Practitioners: An Anthology of Afriquia Theatre (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022). Zodwa has lectured in poetry and theatre since 2018. She is currently a Lecturer in Scriptwriting at Manchester Metropolitan University and an associate dramaturg for Tiata Fahodzi and Fifth Word Theatre. She has written two radio plays, LOVE AGAIN (BBC Radio 3) and A KHOISAN WOMAN (Drama on 3); and three short films: MAHOGANY (National Trust and 24 Design Ltd), NOTES ON BEING A LADY (New Creatives / BBC Arts) and THE ANCESTORS (BBC Films and BFI Network). Zodwa was an international fellow on Oxbelly’s inaugural Episodic Program in Greece. She is currently working on Netflix’s spin-off series, CASTLEVANIA: NOCTURNE.
WORKSHOP #3 Nickie Miles-Wildin: Writing Inclusively: Thinking About Fully Integrated & Accessible Work
Saturday 13th April: 10am-1pm
Nickie is Interim Resident Associate Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre.
Nickie Miles-Wildin is a theatre and radio director who loves telling stories full of hope, connection, community, and reaching audiences that are sometimes excluded from theatre spaces and even stories. Her work challenges the preconceptions around disability and Nickie aims to put those narratives centre stage through her passion for new writing and devising. Nickie was previously Joint Artistic Director/CEO of DaDa, Associate Director (Head of New Writing) at Graeae. Nickie co-founded TwoCan, Gloucestershire’s first disabled led theatre company.
Recent credits include: Tuning In (Miles-Wildin & Ng Productions, Theatre By The Lake, Graeae Theatre Company); Jekyll & Hyde (MST); Alien Nation (Hope Mill Theatre); Little Bits Of Ruined Beauty (Pentabus); Fly The Flag (National Theatre, FUEL); Leave The Light On For Me (Mind The Gap); Kerbs (Graeae Theatre Company, Belgrade Theatre); When This Is Over, Cuttin’ It, The Tempest at Abraham Moss (Royal Exchange Theatre), The Iron Man (Graeae Theatre Company, Spark Arts); The Forest of Forgotten Discos (Contact Theatre)
Online work: Crips Without Constraints Parts One & Two (Graeae Theatre Company); MMXX and ConnectFest (Royal Exchange Theatre)
Audio work: How To Build A DJ (BBC Radio 4, Naked Productions); Love Across The Ages (BBC Radio4, Naked Productions; Nominated Best Radio Drama at ARIAS 2023), The Night Of The Living Flatpacks (Naked Productions); Ghost Pine (Audible, LAMDA)
As Dramaturg: The Little Big Things (@SohoPlace), High Times and Dirty Monsters (20 Stories High, Graeae Theatre Company)
