Submissions Now Being Accepted for 2015 Adrian Pagan Playwright Award

The King's Head Theatre has announced the 2015 Adrian Pagan Award. This year the award is open to anyone who has not had work professionally produced more than once. The Award was set up in memory of stage manager turned playwright Adrian Pagan. We are looking for a good story, well told, that communicates bold ideas, is relevant to our times, and engages in some way with the live nature of theatre. The winning writer's script will be produced at the King's Head Theatre. Deadline for submissions is 10.00AM on 2 February 2015.

All details regarding submissions can be found on our website here: http://kingsheadtheatre.com/adrian-pagan.html

This year's panel of Judges include:

Tess Berry-Hart -Playwright, Someone to Blame and SOCHI 2014; and novelist, Escape from Genopolis

Audrey Sheffield -Freelance Theatre Director. Co-facilitator for NT New Views London Hub and NT Connections Festival Director 2015, National Theatre. Currently Assistant Director on Electra, Old Vic Theatre

Paul Sirett -Playwright, Dramaturg & Associate at Ambassador Theatre Group, RADA & Soho Theatre

Phoebe Waller-Bridge - Olivier Award-nominated writer and performer, Fleabag; Co-Artistic Director, Drywrite

Adam Spreadbury-Maher - Artistic Director, King's Head Theatre

The playwright Adrian Pagan was educated at Charterhouse, the Sorbonne, Imperial College London, and RADA, where he trained in stage management. Whilst working as a stage manager at the Bush Theatre in the mid 1990's, he shone for his wit, intelligence and understanding of the creative processes that bring a new play to life. During this time he was privately hard at work on a play of his own, leading to a change of career after winning the Verity Bargate award for The Backroom in 1996. The play had further success at the Pleasance Theatre in 1998 and at the Bush Theatre in 1999. Its success resulted in Adrian getting the call to move from theatre into television. He cut his TV writing teeth on Family Affairs and Night and Day before moving on to those small-screen institutions The Bill, Where the Heart Is and Holby City. At the time of his death in 2007, aged 39, he was working on numerous new projects, including a series adaptation of The Backroom, a return to stage drama, and even a pantomime for the alternative cabaret venue at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The Backroom was described variously by critics as "disgracefully funny" (The Independent), "flash and funny" (The Guardian) and as having "much winning tenderness" (The Telegraph). The play was revived in a sell-out extended season which opened The c*ckTavern Theatre in 2009.