Perfect Pitch Announces Finalist Writing Teams for 2013-14 Perfect Pitch Award

Perfect Pitch Artistic Director Wendy Barnes and Royal & Derngate Artistic Director James Dacre are delighted to announce the finalist writing teams for the 2013/14 Perfect Pitch Award.

The selected writers are:

Chris Bush and Matthew Winkworth

Adam Meggido, Amy Rosenthal and Duncan Walsh-Atkins

Elizabeth Adlington and Ella Grace

Dougal Irvine and Tim Sutton

Paul Roberts and John-Victor

The winning team of writers will be awarded a commission of £12,000 to complete a full draft of a new musical over a twelve month period supported and mentored throughout by Perfect Pitch and Royal & Derngate. At the end of the year, once the show has been developed through workshops and readings, it will be presented in a professional staged reading.

Each finalist team will be asked to 'pitch' ten minutes of a brand new musical to a panel of experienced judges from the world of musical theatre and beyond, including playwright Samuel Adamson ("The Light Princess", "Gabriel", "All About My Mother"), director Rachel Kavanaugh ("Love Story", "The Sound of Music"), choreographer Stephen Mear ("Kiss Me Kate", "The Pajama Game"), Kerry Michael (Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Stratford East) and Olivier Award winning actors Michael Ball and Janie Dee.

The pitching event will take place on Friday 14 March 2014 at the St. James Studio and the winner will be announced the same day.

The 11 finalists were chosen from 318 applicants who were in turn narrowed down to 44 shortlisted writers. Writers were able to apply as individuals or as a pre-existing writing partnership, and 4 out of 5 of the finalist writing teams have been put together over the course of this process. The award was open to all UK based writers - from playwrights and screenwriters to novelists and songwriters - with no previous experience of writing a musical necessary. Further details about the application and assessment process are available on the Perfect Pitch website (www.perfectpitchmusicals.com ).

Perfect Pitch Artistic Director Wendy Barnes said: "We all had an incredibly difficult job selecting the teams from the hugely talented shortlist. We're excited by the teams, some of which are new collaborations, with one or two who've never written a musical before but have displayed huge promise. It's out of our hands now and over to the judging panel to make the final decision."

Royal & Derngate Artistic Director James Dacre added: "It has been incredibly rewarding for our team at Royal & Derngate to get to know the work of such a wide range of theatre makers through this award. We've been overwhelmed by the number and quality of applications: so much so that we've chosen to include an additional team amongst our finalists."

Founded in 2006, Perfect Pitch supports and develops new and emerging British writers of original musicals in collaboration with a network of partners across the UK. Perfect Pitch is a not-for-profit development network, and is partially funded as part of the Arts Council England's National Portfolio Funding.

Royal & Derngate, the main venue for arts and entertainment in Northamptonshire, has seen its profile as a major producing theatre grow over recent years. Home to two auditoria and a studio space, Made in Northampton seasons of produced work sit alongside a visiting programme of some of the biggest touring theatre shows, comedy and music events.

Royal & Derngate, Derby Live! and West Yorkshire Playhouse's co-production of The Go-Between was also developed by Perfect Pitch and went on to win the 2012 UK Theatre Award for Best Musical Production.

Further information can be found at www.perfectpitchmusicals.com.