Nkenna Akunna, Tom Powell And Tajinder Singh Hayer Win Thirteenth Annual Papatango New Writing Prize

Papatango today announces three winners of the thirteenth Papatango New Writing Prize in a reimagined iteration of the annual awards, in a new partnership with ETT (English Touring Theatre). Selected from 1,410 entries, the winners are Nkenna Akunna for Some Of Us Exist In The Future; Tom Powell for The Silence and The Noise; and Tajinder Singh Hayer for Ghost Stories From An Old Country - each receiving £2000, an audio production, and digital publication with Nick Hern Books.

Also announced today are the shortlisted writers: Billie Collins with But The Heart Stayed Behind; Rebecca Jade Hammond with Hot Chicks; Emma Hemingford with Foreverland; Joe Ward Munrow with Home; and Rían Smith with Endless.

Judged anonymously, with this year's winners selected by Papatango and ETT, each audio play will be recorded and tour to 12 venues spanning the UK, including Bristol Old Vic, Chichester Festival Theatre, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Leeds Playhouse, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Laurels Whitley Bay, Theatr Clwyd, Lyric Theatre Belfast, Southwark Playhouse and Bush Theatre. The recordings will be played from free listening stations, with copies of the scripts including braille translations available. Tour dates to be announced.

Three casts and creative teams will be assembled to record the winning plays - with the company hosting open-entry applications for selected roles including actors, directors and sound designers. Applications are open now, until 27 July. For further details and to apply visit: www.papatango.co.uk/open-hire

George Turvey, Artistic Director of Papatango, today said, "There was a point when it looked like the Papatango Prize might have to fall silent in 2021, with so many projects postponed and stages booked up with deferred shows. That instead we've been able, together with ETT, to rally and present the Prize in a completely new format, supporting more artists than ever before on a completely free and accessible national tour, is a joy. This year saw our highest ever standard of entries, and the three winning writers whose work we're privileged to share are proof that when times are hardest, story-tellers emerge to reinvent and renew. We hope everyone will listen in their local theatre, because they've got brilliant things to say at a time when new voices matter more than ever."

ETT's Artistic Director, Richard Twyman, and Executive Producer, Sophie Scull said, "We've long admired Papatango, the work they produce and their commitment to open recruitment practises in their annual playwriting award, so we're delighted to be working with them on this year's prize: a digital tour of three exceptional works by three captivating new voices. Nkenna, Tajinder and Tom are wonderfully talented writers each exploring important contemporary stories, in innovative and compelling forms, that help us make sense of the world around us. After the last year, the opportunity to share these new plays with audiences across the UK in their local theatre is an immense privilege and we can't wait to get started."

Nkenna Akunna also said, "Having spent most of the last year locked down thousands of miles away, it feels so good to come home to a Prize! Thank you to everyone at Papatango for this opportunity to share my work across the UK."

Tom Powell commented, "I've lived with these characters for a long time, and I'm excited for them to meet new people. After an incredibly hard year, this prize is a ray of light."

Tajinder Singh Hayer added, "The Papatango Prize has been such a wonderful surprise. Like many scriptwriters, I was genuinely scared about the future of the theatre sector. So, it was great to see Papatango reacting in this nimble and sensitive manner to reshape the Prize. I would not have written Ghost Stories from an Old Country without the Prize; I wrote it in a burst to make the deadline. So, it contains some of the rawness that comes with writing at speed, but also some of the rawness of an emotionally draining year."

Every entrant receives feedback on their script - a commitment made by no other company, especially significant as the Prize averages more submissions on a yearly basis than any other playwriting award.

Other writers produced under the Prize include Igor Memic, Dawn King, Dominic Mitchell, Iman Qureshi, Samuel Bailey, Tom Morton-Smith, Fiona Doyle, Matt Grinter, Luke Owen, Louise Monaghan, James Rushbrooke and Jaki McCarrick. Collectively, writers launched through the Prize have won BAFTAs, OffWestEnd and RNT Foundation Awards, been nominated for The Stage Debut Award, The Times Breakthrough Award, the James Tait Black Drama Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, premièred in over twenty countries worldwide, and worked with The National Theatre, RSC, Hampstead Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Theatre Royal Bath, Royal and Derngate, Bush Theatre, Headlong and The Old Vic, as well as in the West End and for the BBC and HBO.

Some Of Us Exist In The Future

By Nkenna Akunna

Chiamaka is new to all this. Fresh off the plane from the UK, she's new to Brooklyn and its extremes. She's new to queer dating. She's new to being an immigrant. Most of all, she's new to the voices of the gods...

Utterly original, wryly funny and always gripping, Some Of Us Exist In The Future follows one woman's journey to finding her place in a world that's not all it seems.

Nkenna Akunna is an Igbo playwright-performer from London. She was a member of the 2017/18 Soho Writers Lab cohort, the 2018 VAULTS Festival New Writers Programme, and is currently an MFA candidate in Playwriting at Brown University. She is a recent recipient of The Kennedy Center's Rosa Parks Playwriting Award and Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting. Akunna is also co-director at Skin Deep, a collective that makes space for Black creatives and creatives of colour through cultural production.

The Silence And The Noise

By Tom Powell

Every teenager knows what it's like to be stuck between things: childhood and maturity, innocence and experience, hope for the future and uncertainty about what that will be. But Daize is torn between even greater challenges: her love for her vulnerable mother and her dangerous friendship with Ant. An outsider with knockout trainers, Ant has just appeared on her doorstep, bringing with him a whole world of trouble.

The Silence and The Noise captures the story of two young people on the edge.

Tom Powell was the 2019-21 CRSC Writer in Residence at Pentabus Theatre and was chosen for the BBC Studios Writers' Academy 2019/20. His previous writing includes I Dare You (Nottingham Playhouse/Curve - shortlisted for the Soho Young Writers' Award) and Little Echoes (Hope Theatre - published by Methuen/Bloomsbury). He previously won the OTR National Radio Drama Award and the Harry Porter Prize. He was selected for the BBC Words First spoken word programme, is an Arts Council England/BBC New Creative and his short audio drama Love Beyond the Zoo will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra in September 2021.

Ghost Stories From An Old Country

By Tajinder Singh Hayer

Dalvir has always told a good ghost story, properly unsettling, dark tales to send a chill right through his younger brother Amar. But now Dalvir's almost a ghost himself, cloistered and secretive. Amar desperately wants to reconnect with the only family he has left, but can he unravel Dalvir's stories to find a way back to his brother?

Threaded through with captivating fables, Ghost Stories From An Old Country is a riveting and poignant exploration of the ties that bind us.

Tajinder Singh Hayer lectures in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. His writing credits for theatre include North Country (Freedom Studios), Players, Mela (Leeds Playhouse) and In This House (Menagerie); and for radio, The One That Got Away (BBC Radio 3), If You Can't Stand The Heat, ID (BBC Radio 4), We're Not Getting Married, Ask Mina (BBC Asian Network), and Tidelands. His television credits include Numtums. He previously won the BBC's The Spin competition with his play People Like Me in 2003. He has been a writer on attachment at the Leeds Playhouse, BBC Radio Drama Manchester and The National Theatre.