I hear the Royal Court theatre is in the final stages of its search to find a successor to outgoing artistic director Vicky Featherstone, and Rufus Norris recently announced the worst kept secret in British theatre: he is leaving his post as director of the National Theatre. From the Kiln in Kilburn to Manchester’s Royal Exchange, artistic directors are on the move. This is worrying news for playwrights in the middle of writing commissions for these venues as the merry-go-round of departing and newly appointed theatre managers continues. Will the new AD like my work, they’re asking themselves, or will I be looking for another home for my new play? Will the new management make things better for writers or worse? It’s an unsettling time and all the change and imminent change has brought into sharp focus a worrying trend in the way playwrights have been treated in the past decade.
Earlier this year, I read out an anonymised letter from a playwright to the Stage newspaper’s Future of Theatre conference. It was not the first time I’d heard such a tale; indeed, it has become depressingly ubiquitous. This playwright wrote with a force and clarity that shook the room. They recounted the three years spent writing and developing their play with the encouragement of a nameless Arts Council-funded theatre, only to be met with a wall of silence for a whole calendar year.
