Paines Plough Reveals Details For Tour The Writer Festival
The one-day event is a celebration of new writing, and an exploration of its future, with writers across the country.
Paines Plough has announced the details for the Tour the Writer Festival. Taking place on Saturday 7 March 2026 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, the one-day event is a celebration of new writing, and an exploration of its future, with writers across the country.
The festival is the culmination of Tour the Writer, a three-year project led by Paines Plough with seven organisations across the country, with the shared aim to develop and support the writing networks in their respective areas. The partner organisations are the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, Landmark Theatres in North Devon and Peterborough, Mercury Theatre Colchester, Theatre by the Lake in Cumbria, Theatre Royal Plymouth, and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture (in collaboration with Freedom Studios, Bradford Producing Hub and The Upsetters).
There will be events running throughout the day at the Belgrade in Coventry, including an opening ‘in conversation' with playwright Simon Stephens; design and dramaturgy workshops by award winning designers Milla Clarke and Rosie Elnile; ‘How A Play Becomes a PLAY: Text Into Performance' workshops, delivered by Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough Katie Posner and dramaturg Gurnesha Bola. Additional programming includes a panel discussion about the future of new writing and touring, with Corey Campbell (Artistic Director of Belgrade Theatre), Madeleine Kludje (Associate Director at Birmingham Rep), Somebody Jones (Writer), Gillian Greer (Associate Dramaturg at the Royal Court), chaired by Katie Posner with further panelists to be announced.
Alongside these events, there will be scratch performance extracts of the fourteen scripts which have been developed during the third year of the programme. The mentored writers are Dan Loops and Jan Ruppe (from Bradford), Emma Bernard and Ben SantaMaria (from Colchester), Sara Amanda and Matthew Gabrielli (from Coventry), Sophia Atcha and Rachel Price (from Cumbria), Jessy Roberts and Emily Swettenham (from Peterborough), Kayleigh Mai Hinsley and Selina Keedwell (from North Devon), and Jon Nash and Jane Spurr (from Plymouth). The extracts will be directed by Katie Posner, Jay Zorenti-Nakhid, and Josh Parr.
Tour the Writer is a multi-year writer development programme established by Paines Plough with seven partner organisations in 2023. The aim was to create a nationwide network of writers, offering one-to-one support, masterclasses and script dramaturgy to connect with budding playwrights around the UK. Since then, the programme has engaged with over 350 writers, delivered workshops and masterclasses to 1300 total participants, mentored 72 writers in the second year, and 14 in the third year. Mentored writers have gone on to further readings at Camden People's Theatre, Theatre by the Lake in Cumbria, Mercury Theatre, as well as a full production at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester for Tassa Deparis's Swallow the Lake in October 2025, which Deparis had been developing on the programme.
Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough Katie Posner, and Deputy Artistic Director (maternity cover) Debo Adebayo said: “It's been such a pleasure to bring hundreds of writers together in these last 3 years, and see them grow and develop on their creative journeys. The project - which has seen us build an incredible community of writers - wouldn't have been possible without the seven organisations who make up Tour the Writer. All of them gave their time, expertise and commitment to support this network of writers, and have backed our mission to champion playwrights during a difficult time for touring and programming new writing. We can't wait to put extracts of the 14 Year-3 writers on stage at the Belgrade, and to celebrate (and agitate) for new voices in theatres across the land.”
Jay Zorenti-Nakhid, Associate Director at the Belgrade Theatre Coventry said: “Paines Plough's Tour the Writer programme has genuinely impacted and how we think about supporting writers locally. It's helped us offer more opportunities for local writers and supported our preferred approach of building longer-term relationships rooted in trust, rigour and ambition. Having a national conversation embedded in our local context has been invaluable, and we're incredibly excited to host the festival at the Belgrade as a way of celebrating writers at every stage of their journeys and placing Coventry firmly in the national new writing ecology.”
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