The Papatango new writing prize has been awarded to Hull playwright Laura Waldren for a drama about life in an eating disorder unit.
Waldren said that Some Demon, her first full-length script, was “a very difficult, personal but important play to write” about what she described as “still deeply misunderstood illnesses”.
The play follows the relationship between teenager Sam and fortysomething Zoe, whose lives in the unit are further complicated by the arrival of a new patient. Some Demon will have its world premiere at the Arcola theatre in London next summer and will be published by Nick Hern Books. The prize gives the writer a royalty of 8% of the box office and a new £7,000 commission which comes with developmental support.
“It’s a huge privilege – and a massive shock – to have won,” said Waldren, who is also an actor. “I entered the prize hoping to get some feedback, and never expected in a million years this would happen … especially given how hard it is right now for debut writers to get their work read, let alone produced.”
There were 1,468 entries to this year’s competition, the 15th edition of the prize. Also announced on Thursday were four shortlisted writers who each receive £500: Piers Black for My Dad Hunts Bears, Yolanda Mercy for Handsworth Boys, Hannah Shury-Smith for Go Back Home! and Georgia Green for Private Adult Things. Their scripts will be filmed as staged readings and released online. Josh Barrow, whose script Sweet Heathens also impressed the panel of anonymous judges, will receive £2,500 to write a 10-minute short film, which will be released next year.
Papatango’s George Turvey and Chris Foxon, who last year had an unsuccessful bid to become one of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations, said the quality of plays entered for the award had been higher than ever. “That the prize has found a way to expand and showcase more new voices, despite being denied Arts Council England project funding after more than a decade of extraordinary subsidised success, is testament to its pivotal role opening pathways into theatre. It is more essential than ever in a context of massive cuts to programming and development.”
In the UK, Beat can be contacted on 0808-801-0677. In the US, the National Eating Disorders Association is on 800-931-2237. In Australia, the Butterfly Foundation is at 1800 33 4673. Other international helplines can be found at Eating Disorder Hope.
