Papatango Theatre Company

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Papatango Theatre Company is a multi-award-winning theatre company and registered charity based in the United Kingdom. It is one of the country’s foremost producers of new playwrights according to The Stage newspaper..

About

Papatango specialises in developing new playwrights, producing world premieres of new plays, and helping young people at risk of cultural exclusion access theatre. The artists and plays produced by Papatango have won major awards and premiered worldwide (see sections below), earning the company a reputation as “remarkable unearthers of new talent” according to the Evening Standard.

Projects and Discoveries

The initiatives by which Papatango find and champion new playwrights include:

Papatango New Writing Prize

Launched in 2007, the Prize was the first, and remains the only annual, playwriting award in the UK to guarantee a full production, publication, commission and royalty to an emerging playwright.

It has launched some of the most successful playwrights in UK theatre, including BAFTA-winner Dominic Mitchell, the multi-award-winning Dawn King, and Fiona Doyle, nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Prize-winning plays have premiered worldwide, including Foxfinder in Germany, Iceland, the USA, Greece, Australia, and Sweden, Unscorched in Italy, and Coolatully in the USA.

The Prize receives more annual entries than any other playwriting award in the UK, and is unique in giving free, personal feedback to every entry. Michael Billington in The Guardian has described the Papatango New Writing Prize as “knock[ing] spots off much of the new writing I have seen” and as having “unearthed some outstanding writers in recent years”.

Resident Playwright Scheme

Each year Papatango commission an early stage playwright to develop a new play, with a commitment to producing and publishing it. Writers launched through the Residency include Alfred Fagon Audience Award winner May Sumbwanyambe, described as “a writer of terrific potential” in The Daily Telegraph and a “rare discovery” in The Times.

GoWrite

Papatango’s free participation and engagement programme GoWrite was launched in 2017, providing free playwriting training to over 4000 people a year, as well as £5000 in travel bursaries.

GoWrite takes award-winning theatre-makers into state schools across the UK, helping students write their own plays which are then professionally performed and published. It also delivers regular free workshops for adults, runs free playwriting courses in regional venues otherwise without new writing provision, culminating in performances free to a local audience, and runs a fortnightly live chat service offering advice to early stage playwrights.

Book

In autumn 2018 Nick Hern Books will publish Being A Playwright: A Career Guide for Writers, which draws on the Papatango team’s decade of experience championing new playwrights to explain how to break into theatre and build a writing career. It is co-written by Papatango’s Artistic Director George Turvey and Producer Chris Foxon.

Productions and Adaptations

As of spring 2018 Papatango have produced world premieres in over a dozen cities throughout the UK, including at Southwark Playhouse, Arcola Theatre, Finborough Theatre, Theatr Clwyd, North Wall Arts Centre, Marlowe Theatre, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cheltenham Everyman Theatre, the Bike Shed Theatre, and Greenwich Theatre.

Papatango have also adapted theatre productions for radio, with After Independence by May Sumbwanyambe airing on BBC Radio 4 in summer 2017 with the original director and cast of the stage show. It was named Pick of the Week.

Awards

Papatango productions or artists have won multiple theatre awards including:

2016 Alfred Fagon Audience Award, for After Independence by May Sumbwanyambe 2013 Royal National Theatre Foundation Playwright Award, for Foxfinder by Dawn King 2012 Off West End Most Promising Playwright Award, for Foxfinder by Dawn King 2011 Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Newcomer, for Foxfinder director Blanche McIntyre

In addition, Papatango productions or artists have been nominated for over a dozen other theatre awards, including Off West End Awards for Most Promising Playwright, Best New Play, Best Male Performance, Best Female Performance, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Writers discovered by Papatango have also won awards in other media, including BAFTAs.

Management and Governance

Papatango was founded in 2007 by Sam Donovan, Matt Roberts and George Turvey, who operated as co-Artistic Directors for Papatango’s first five years. George Turvey became the sole Artistic Director in 2013, with Matt Roberts and Sam Donovan leaving to pursue other projects, including founding the Hope Street Theatre in Liverpool.

Papatango was formally incorporated as a company in 2010. It became a registered charity in 2013 as part of the strategy of newly appointed producer Chris Foxon.

The leadership team currently comprises George Turvey and Chris Foxon. The board of trustees are David Bond, Sam Donovan, Zoe Lafferty and Nicholas Rogers.

External links

• Official website

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