Guest Blog: 'We’re On The Cusp Of Losing New Writers': Writer Hannah Doran on Her Papatango Award-Winning Play, THE MEAT KINGS! (INC) OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

I’ve been trying to ‘make it’ as a playwright for a decade. A decade of feverish all-nighters for first drafts, day jobs in retail, hitting brick walls on re-writes, and, of course, rejection after rejection - from writers’ groups, MFA programmes, residencies, awards, and open callouts. Now, in what feels a mind-boggling turn of events, I’m about to open my first professional production, and wondering if this is ‘making it’. And if so, how did I get here?

After submitting a number of plays (in various states of disrepair and ‘completion’, I’ll be honest) to the Papatango Prize over those ten years, in 2024 I won — and we’re now a few days away from the play’s opening at London’s Park Theatre, with whom Papatango are co-producing.

The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights offers a glimpse into a world I’ve never seen on stage before. One of my ‘waiting to make it’ day jobs was in a butcher’s in Brooklyn, New York - a gig I was apparently qualified for because I'd worked on the Tesco deli counter. I did this part-time, in rep with an unpaid internship at an off-Broadway theatre. It was overwhelming at first, especially being a vegetarian, but I knew it would form the basis of a play one day — it simply had to. It was cold, bloody, loud and busy, and populated by a real melting-pot of characters from varied backgrounds.

The story of my play is about the hustle to ‘make it’, and follows five people’s struggles to survive. This size of cast is fairly large, for a debut. Watching them find their way into playing butchers has been a joy - not least for the prop interaction. There’s meat (no, it’s not real, but they’ve sure worked some magic), there are knives, there’s a bucket of intestines. It’s a visceral world that demands to be put on stage.

It’s not really my place as a writer to talk the ins and outs of money, costs, and budget, but at the same time, it’s not difficult to see that the opportunity I’m being afforded here is enormous - and rare. I have Papatango to thank for that, as well as their co-producers and our lovely hosts, Park Theatre.

Papatango have, for almost two decades, been resolutely committed to developing new work, producing new playwrights, and creating opportunities for writers. Chris Foxon, Papatango’s Executive Director, wrote an article for the BBC’s Writing Today series about the realities of running a new writing competition. He said ‘We choose plays we believe in, not plays that are cheap.’ I think that’s a statement the whole industry could benefit from osmosing. Because there are surely only so many revivals and Shakespeares we can do before drama stops doing its job - reflecting the world we actually live in now, holding a mirror up to society, casting a light on what the future might hold.

This has been the role of the dramatist for centuries, and we’re on the cusp of losing new writers simply for lack of investment in them. If playwrights are going to ‘make it’, they need opportunity. They need to be given chances, development - and money. Ah - the money problem. Theatres don’t have any, nobody does. That’s why I think we’ve lost our palate for risk. It is so much safer to cast a star actor or two in a big-name revival, and charge through the nose for tickets you know the usual demographic will pay for, than to invest in the huge risk of giving a new writer a chance.

Papatango —and Park Theatre — have given me a chance. They’ve taken a risk on a story that is both a love letter to the bright lights and sticky floors of a Brooklyn cut room, and a sobering examination of the fallacy of the American Dream. Come and join us at Cafarelli & Sons Meat Market in Park200, starting 30 October.