Canberra Youth Theatre offers $16.5K emerging playwright program, with support of Holding Redlich

National law firm Holding Redlich and Canberra Youth Theatre have today announced a new long-term partnership, in which Holding Redlich will be the principal sponsor of the Emerging Playwright Commission for the next three years.

Canberra Youth Theatre’s Emerging Playwright Commission offers a professional commission to an emerging Australian playwright, to create a new full-length work that brings the voices and stories of youth to the stage.

Canberra Youth Theatre’s Artistic Director & CEO, Luke Rogers:

This is an invaluable opportunity for an emerging playwright to be supported and nurtured through a process that will see their initial ideas developed and brought to life.

In 2022, Canberra Youth Theatre celebrates the phenomenal 50 year legacy of bringing young people together to collaborate and create, with a focus on our proud history of commissioning and developing new Australian works created especially for young people. With Holding Redlich’s support, we will continue to invest in and support emerging playwrights to stretch their creative boundaries and reach a wider audience for their stories.

Holding Redlich has a long history of supporting the arts and the communities in which they operate. The new partnership represents a major expansion of the firm’s national arts sponsorship, which includes the Salon des Refusés exhibition at the National Trust’s S.H. Ervin Gallery in Sydney, the Victorian College of the Arts Art Masters Exhibition in Melbourne, the Flying Arts Alliance in Brisbane and regional Queensland, and the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.

Holding Redlich National Managing Partner, Ian Robertson AO:

The firm is proud to be the principal sponsor of the three-year program. Our firm’s long-standing support for the arts stems from our founder, Peter Redlich, who was a great supporter of the arts. This is our first-ever sponsorship for emerging playwrights, and we are excited to partner with the Canberra Youth Theatre to help these young artists develop their own artistic practice.

In 2021, Canberra Youth Theatre received over 50 applications from around the country for the inaugural Emerging Playwright Commission program, with writers from all across Australia eligible to apply.

ACT based artist, Joanna Richards, who was awarded the commission last year, said:

The commission offered her an enormous opportunity to develop as a playwright.

To write material for young people — about what is arguably one of the most formative times in any person’s life — is such a gift. I am excited to create a work that is intellectually meaty and performatively fun for an ensemble to work on. I am indebted to Canberra Youth Theatre for giving me this opportunity.

The Emerging Playwright Commission places emerging playwrights at the centre of the creative process, and is specifically designed to springboard writers at a crucial point in their career. The commission is for emerging Australian playwrights aged under 35 who have created a modest body of work, but have not yet been professionally produced by a major theatre company.

The commission offers an emerging playwright or writing team $16,500 to develop a full-length script suitable to be performed by actors aged anywhere between 7 and 25.

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