The Playwright's Laboratory Play Development Initiative Launches

The Playwright's Laboratory (www.playwrightslab.com) streams rehearsed readings of new plays for an international audience of industry professionals, with the aim of securing new opportunities for those plays.

The Playwright's Laboratory (TPL) is a meeting place for a global network of theatre professionals and organisations looking for new plays to programme. Through sharing filmed table readings of new plays, TPL hopes to connect key theatre decision makers with new work emerging from around the world and give them the unique opportunity to engage with the material when it's read by professional actors.

TPL finds new work to feature on the secure network through partnerships with several outstanding theatre organisations including Papatango Theatre Company and Actors Touring Company in the UK, Marquis Literary and Prairie Theatre Company in Canada, and How Now Brown Cow and The Baxter Theatre in South Africa. Other members include New National Theatre Tokyo, Shanghai Culture Square, Soho Theatre, The National Arts Festival - South Africa, The Soweto Theatre and the Young Vic.

As well as supporting theatre professionals in finding and sharing new work, TPL gives writers a meaningful opportunity to develop their work in the rehearsal room without the pressure of a full production. With TPL affiliates currently in the UK, USA and South Africa, TPL works with writers around the world to develop and showcase new plays looking for a creative home.

In its first partnership, TPL will be presenting the four shortlisted plays from the 2022 Papatango New Writing Prize (https://papatango.co.uk/new-writing-prize/). Each writer will receive £500 and a reading at TPL member Riverside Studios in London. The four readings will be filmed and uploaded to TPL's private network, which can be accessed by our international pool of leading industry professionals for consideration.

If you're a theatre organisation or producer interested in presenting work or finding your next play on the network, please get in touch by emailing TPL at: office@playwrightslab.com.

The Playwright's Laboratory is founded by Artistic Director Katharine Farmer (www.katharine-farmer.com) and Producer Daniel Galloway (www.danielgalloway.com).