The date is set, the location is confirmed and the actors are waiting, all they need now is an aspiring young playwright to create a play that can be performed in and around the Debtors’ Prison at York Castle Museum.
Of course, it is not that simple, putting on a play is a complex and expensive business, and for a playwright getting your work performed is extremely difficult.
So, York Theatre Royal and York Castle Museum are working together on a project which is part of York Castle Museum’s Changing Spaces project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The competition aims to find a playwright who will create the script for this performance. The successful writer will be working with the museum to access research materials and with York Theatre Royal to ensure that the play meets the needs of young performers.
Many of the smaller successful productions that I have seen this year have been inspired by the personal experiences of the writers. This competition will both take young playwrights out of the comfort zone of their own experience and into the exciting world of historical facts that must be woven into a drama that will bring the Museum’s collection and the research of the curatorial team to life.
The competition judges are especially interested in exploring the female experience of the debtors’ prison.
The drama will be 45 minutes long and performed by a cast of 25 actors, aged 14 to 16, at York Castle Museum in March 2018.
The playwright who is successful in the competition will receive a commission worth £3,500.
As Lucy Knock, Interim Learning Manager for York Castle Museum, told me the museum’s past as a prison to notorious villains, thieves and murderers will provide a rich history for a talented writer to draw on to create an intriguing, thrilling or moving account of what life was like here. To see this performed in the original cells will breathe new life into these spaces and allow us to share some of the building’s fascinating stories with new audiences in new ways.
York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre worked with York Castle Museum earlier in the year on a production called Forward to Victory. This saw three groups of young people perform the play about the First World War on the Museum’s recreated street Kirkgate.
There is something special about drama when it is performed outside around the audience rather than in a conventional theatre space. I am looking forward to seeing the results of this joint venture of York Theatre Royal Youth Theatre and York Castle Museum.