THE BALLAD OF A VIRGIN WHO CAN'T DRIVE Wins Soho Theatre's Overheard Podcast Competition With NBCUniversal International Studios and StoryHunter

Soho Theatre announces today Ellie Fulcher's The Ballad of a Virgin Who Can't Drive as the winner of its OVERHEARD Podcast Competition in partnership with NBCUniversal International Studios and StoryHunter. As the winner, Ellie will receive a cash prize of £2k. StoryHunter will produce the podcast for release in autumn 2021.

This is a love story. Or at least Lia really wants it to be. 24-year-old Lia, wants to lose her virginity before the end of her youth (when her young person railcard expires.)

Ellie Fulcher is a writer and facilitator from South East London. She is currently the participation associate at The Royal Court Theatre where she works with a range of writers to support their development. The Ballad of a Virgin who can't drive is Ellie's podcast debut.

In 2019, NBCUniversal International Studios and Soho Theatre formed a partnership to nurture and develop emerging theatre talent and develop scripted projects for the international TV market.

When the pandemic forced the theatre industry to close its doors, NBCUniversal International Studios built on its partnership with Soho Theatre extending further support for playwrights to continue developing their craft and create new content - not just for theatre and TV, but for audio too.

Leveraging its existing partnership with short form video and audio content company, StoryHunter, the studio developed a new initiative with Soho Theatre entitled OVERHEARD. Open exclusively to the theatre's Writers' Lab Alumni 2019/20 only, the podcast competition saw entrants tasked with developing an idea for a fictional podcast, with a view to produce and release a pilot this autumn.

From the entrants, a selection of finalists were chosen to attend a free workshop on 'How to Write for a Podcast' in April, where they gained invaluable access to creative talent from across the studio and StoryHunter to develop their writing skills for audio, learn about best practice and the production process for fictional podcasts, and ultimately prepare a pilot script to pitch. The shortlisted scripts from Zain Dada, Liz Daramola, Naomi Denny, Ellie Fulcher and Sid Sagar included a love story, a political thriller, an inspiring football story, an exploration of online persona, and a sci-fi mystery.

The judging panel of key creatives included Soho Theatre's Creative Director David Luff, Soho Theatre Writers' Lab alumna and Playwright Ava Wong Davies, NBCUniversal International Studios' Director of Development, Scripted Programming Christopher Kam, and Scripted Development Co-ordinator Anastasia Kullmann, StoryHunter Founder/Managing Director Kirsty Hunter and Overheard Workshop Facilitator and Writer Vivienne Franzmann.

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