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Adam New Zealand Play Award

This is the third year of our annual award, open to any new unproduced New Zealand play. We are delighted to announce that thanks to the generosity of the Adam Foundation, we are now able to offer a cash prize of $5000 to the winner; a professional public reading of one of the shortlisted plays at Circa Theatre, produced by Circa and Playmarket; followed by a celebratory function! The award, previously the Playmarket New Play Award,  will now be known as the Adam New Zealand Play Award.

The deadline for submissions for the 2010 awards has passed. The winner(s) will be announced by the end of March.  The next deadline is December 3rd 2010.  Please note that submissions should be emailed, and MUST include page numbers, a brief synopsis and a list of characters.

As well as the overall winner, the Award offers the following opportunities:-

  • The Best Play by a Maori Playwright:-   Starting in 2010, there will now be a special prize for the best play submitted by a Maori Playwright (please indicate with your submission if you wish to be considered for this prize). We offer a reading, and production assistance as appropriate.  Playmarket are currently seeking a sponsor for this prize. 
  • Special Prize for a Woman Playwright:-  The Play Press will select from the submissions an entry for the annual Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (submissions by invitation only; www.blackburnprize.org).  As only a third of Playmarket's clients are women, we hope this will encourage a few more to get serious!
  • Special Prize for an Auckland Playwright:-  A submission from the Auckland region will receive development support and a performance opportunity at the PumpHouse Theatre during February 2010.
  • Public Reading at Circa Theatre:-  Circa Theatre will choose a play from the shortlist for a public reading, to be staged at the award presentation function.

Take this opportunity to have your play read by industry professionals, and get it on the Playmarket radar.  We would love to see your work.

All submissions and enquiries to Jean:- scripts@playmarket.org.nz

Past Winners

The 53rd Victim by Pip Hall won Playmarket’s 2009 New Play Award, from a very strong field. The 53rd Victim, and Sketch by Wellington playwright Kate Morris were also selected to be given rehearsed public readings as part of the Aotearoa Playwrights Conference NEW WRITING / NEW PRODUCING Forum at the Auckland Festival.

The winner in 2008 was Ninna Tersman, whose play Fucking Parasites was workshopped in London, directed by Lorae Parry with script advisor Tanika Gupta. Its premiere took place at the Alcyone Festival in Chicago in 2009.

Some suggestions ...

Check out - www.snodger.com.au/shop/DVD/WIW/page/pbovell.php#tip - couldn't put it better myself.

We are trying to encourage playwrights to banish all self censoring, all worries about 'what theatres want', what is affordable, what they think audiences want to see.  We want you to trust your instincts and really push your play in exactly the direction YOU want it to go.  Be as irresponsible as you like - anything goes.

We would like to encourage you to imagine and write for your absolutely ideal theatre; a theatre that has no cast restrictions, attracts only brilliant actors, designers and directors, is physically magically flexible, has a huge loyal intelligent audience who are longing to see plays exactly like yours ... have we missed anything out?  Add any other characteristics that are important to you!

This is a competition for the BEST play, not the most stageable one - and we think too many playwrights are getting a bit safe, a bit stuck in a rut.  If you think you could be one of them, use this excuse to explode yourself out of it!  Playmarket's job is to encourage theatres to stage the plays that playwrights want to write, not the other way round!