Calling All Playwrights: $32,000 prize pool for Patrick White Playwright’s Award and Fellowship

The 2011 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and Fellowship Sydney Theatre Company is inviting applications from Australia’s talented playwrights for the 2011 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship.

The prizes are designed to benefit both emerging and established writers and have a total prize pool of $32,500.The Patrick White Playwrights’ Award offers a cash prize of $7,500 for a full-length unproduced play of any genre written by an Australian playwright over 18 years of age. The readers and judges assessing the scripts seek a work that is original and ambitious with great potential for staging.

The Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship is a position for an Australian playwright whose work has been produced professionally in Australia within the last four years. The winning playwright receives $25,000 for a year-long Fellowship in recognition of their contribution to the theatre.

In 2010 STC increased its contribution to the development of Australian playwriting with the introduction of the new Fellowship which recognises and supports established Australian playwrights. The Fellowship runs in addition to the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, which has been an annual initiative of the STC since 2000.

Over the last year the inaugural Fellow, Raimondo Cortese, whose adaptation of The Threepenny Opera played at Sydney Theatre in September, has participated in a range of activities at STC including running master classes and mentoring emerging playwrights.

Previous winners of the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award include Melissa Bubnic (2010), Ian Wilding (2009), Nicki Bloom (2008), Angus Cerini (2007) and Wesley Enoch (2005). The closing date for entries to both the Award and the Fellowship is 11 November 2011. Winners will be announced at a special event as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival 2012 along with a reading of the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award winning play.

Further information about the Award and the Fellowship can be found at the STC website: www.sydneytheatre.com/patrickwhiteThe Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship are held in honour of Patrick White’s contribution to Australian theatre.

The awards are generously supported by the Sydney Morning Herald.For further information: Tim McKeough (9250 1703 or tmckeough@sydneytheatre.com.au) or Ella Minton (9250 1705 or eminton@sydneytheatre.com.au)