Finborough Theatre Presents PLAYFIGHT Online

A rehearsed reading of the Finborough Theatre's 2020 ETPEP Award-winning play, Playfight by Julia Grogan, directed by acclaimed director Blanche McIntyre is now available on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel for one week as part of #FinboroughForFree, starring Robyn Cara (Trying, Ackley Bridge), Hannah Millward (Broadchurch, Bliss) and Helen Monks (Raised by Wolves, Upstart Crow).

Available to watch for free until midnight, April 8 2021. To view, please click here.
A subtitled version of this video is available to watch from our partners at Scenesaver, here.

Kiera, Zainab and Lucy are smart, outrageous and savvy. They've figured out that there are some things school sex ed lessons don't cover. Now, as they grow from girls into women, they're going to find the answers...

But nothing ever happens in their town, and they're fifteen, so what do they know?

By turns funny and poignant, their experiences as they grow from girls into women shine a light on contemporary desire, the pain we feel and the lengths we go to...

Informed by the rise in violence in mainstream pornography and the 'rough sex defence', Playfight interrogates the dangerous reality of the hyper-sexualisation and exploitation of young people.

16+ The play contains strong language, and themes of violence, including sexual violence, and sexual abuse.

Playwright Julia Grogan is 24, grew up in the Midlands and moved to London to train as an actor at Rose Bruford College, graduating in 2018. Shortly after graduating, she started working behind the bar at The Royal Court Theatre and was invited to join their Royal Court Intro Writers' Group. As a result, she wrote Playfight, her first play. Julia co-wrote dark historical comedy Belly Up which premiered at the Vault Festival 2020 and will be performed at the Underbelly at the 2021 Edinburgh Festival. She is currently working on a new dark comedy Dark Side of June, commissioned by members of the Young Vic Genesis programme. Acting includes At Sea (BBC Radio 4), Belly Up (Vault Festival) and Island Town (Catalyst Festival).

Director Blanche McIntyre returns to the Finborough Theatre where she was the inaugural winner of the Leverhulme Bursary for Emerging Theatre Directors, and Director in Residence at The National Theatre Studio and the Finborough Theatre. Her productions at the Finborough Theatre include Foxfinder ("Blanche McIntyre's fabulous production." Dominic Maxwell, The Times), Accolade ("McIntyre's up-close staging enthralls." Kate Bassett, The Independent on Sunday) and Moliere, or The League of Hypocrites. Other theatre includes Hymn, The Writer (Almeida Theatre), Botticelli In The Fire (Hampstead Theatre), Bartholomew Fair, The Winter's Tale, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare's Globe), Titus Andronicus, The Two Noble Kinsmen (Royal Shakespeare Company), Tartuffe (National Theatre), Tosca, The Marriage of Figaro (English Touring Opera), The Norman Conquests (Chichester Festival Theatre), Women in Power, Tonight At 8.30, The Nutcracker (Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Southampton), Welcome Home Captain Fox! (Donmar Warehouse), The Oresteia (HOME, Manchester), The Seagull (Headlong Theatre), Noises Off (Nottingham Playhouse), Repentance/Behind The Lines (Bush Theatre), Ciphers (Out of Joint), The Birthday Party (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Liar Liar (Unicorn Theatre), The Only True History of Lizzie Finn, Open Heart Surgery (Southwark Playhouse), The Seven Year Itch (Salisbury Playhouse) and When Did You Last See My Mother? (Trafalgar Studios). Film includes co-writingThe Hippopotamus, based on the novel by Stephen Fry.

The ETPEP Award is a playwriting prize for new UK playwrights who work or have worked in the theatre industry, run by the Finborough Theatre in association with the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust (ETPEP). The winner received a prize of £6,000, a development relationship with the Finborough Theatre including one-to-one dramaturgy with Finborough Theatre Artistic Director and playwright Neil McPherson; and an online rehearsed reading performance. Nine longlisted candidates also received a prize of £300.

The judges for the 2020 Award were playwright Winsome Pinnock; Artistic Director of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Neil McPherson; Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre and playwright Sue Healy; actor Oliver Ford Davies; actor, playwright and activist Athena Stevens; and Clive Webster of the Experienced Theatre Practitioners Early Playwriting Trust, which founded the award. For a full list of longlisted and shortlisted candidates for the ETPEP Award, please visit our website, here.

The ETPEP Award 2021 is currently open for entries until April 30th 2021. The main prize will again be £6,000 with nine longlist prizes of £300 each. For 2021, the winning play will also be published by Salamander Street, independent publisher of theatre, performance and live art. The winner of last year's ETPEP Award, Fence by Abigail Andjel, will also be produced at the Finborough Theatre in 2022.

Details available here.

As part of the Finborough Theatre's #FinboroughForFree programme, the theatre will be releasing a new work every month during our closure to watch online for free. Following our successful release of archive recordings during 2020, we are now concentrating on original online content for 2021. For more information about this and other Finborough Theatre productions currently available to stream online, visit the Finborough Theatre website at www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk