Genesis Conversations
Playwriting Today: The Hard Questions
Event details
Tue 14 May 2024
‘You have to ask the hard questions’ – Tony Kushner
What are the hard questions that we should be asking of playwriting today and tomorrow?
Join the Genesis Foundation, the Almeida Theatre and a panel of playwrights and arts leaders, to consider how contemporary playwriting is evolving.
The conversation will be chaired by Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold, who will be joined by panellists Dipo Baruwa-Etti (Writer, The Clinic), David Byrne (Artistic Director, Royal Court), Nadia Fall (Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Stratford East), James Graham (Writer, Ink) and Ava Pickett (Writer, 1536, winner of The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 2024).
This event will be produced by the Almeida as part of the Genesis Conversations series which have taken place at the National Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Greater London Authority and the Barbican. It will be a productive discussion where creatives can discuss the challenges around new writing. The intention is for this conversation to be a true reflection of the state of play, with positive takeaways on how playwrights can be better supported. The event will be filmed for future digital release.
Running Time
Approx. 1 hour
Tickets are free and limited to 2 per booker.
Genesis Almeida New Playwrights, Big Plays Programme
This Genesis Conversation builds on the Almeida’s and Genesis Foundation’s partnership which nurtures and commissions early-career playwrights to develop ‘big plays’ for mainstages across the UK. Find out more about the programme, including our past and present Genesis Almeida Writers here.
PanelLists
The conversation will be chaired by Almeida Artistic Director Rupert Goold and include:
Dipo Baruwa-Etti
Dipo Baruwa-Etti
For the Almeida: The Clinic.
Theatre includes: The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars (Theatre Royal Stratford East, nominated for Alfred Fagon Award for Best New Play and Off West End Award for Most Promising Playwright); An unfinished man (The Yard); Half-Empty Glasses (Paines Plough).
Film includes: The Last Days.
Dipo also has original projects in development with companies including Blueprint Pictures and Duck Soup Films. As a playwright, Dipo was the 2020 Channel 4 Playwright on attachment with the Almeida Theatre and shortlisted for the George Devine Most Promising Playwright Award that same year with his play When Great Trees Fall. As a poet, he has been published in The Good Journal, Ink Sweat & Tears, Amaryllis, and had his work showcased nationwide as part of End Hunger UK’s touring exhibition on food insecurity.
David Byrne
David Byrne
David Byrne is the new Artistic Director of the Royal Court, appointed as Vicky Featherstone’s successor in July 2023. He was the founding Artistic and Executive Director of the New Diorama Theatre where his works included For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy (transferred to the Royal Court and West End); Operation Mincemeat (transferred to the West End). He is also a playwright and theatre director. His plays include The Incident Room; Secret Life of Humans; Down and Out in Paris and London (Edinburgh Fringe/ New Diorama Theatre/ 59E59 Theatres). Byrne is the recipient of several Peter Brook Awards, the Offie Award for Best Artistic Director, the Enfant Terribles Prize, and is one of The Stage’s 100 most influential people working in theatre.
Nadia Fall
Nadia Fall
Nadia Fall is the Artistic Director of Theatre Royal Stratford East. She trained at Goldsmiths College, University of London (MA Directing) and on the National Theatre Studio’s Directors programme. Her theatre credits include The Village Idiot; Shining City; The Village; King Hedley II; The Sun, The Moon, And The Stars (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Three Sisters; The Suicide; Our Country’s Good; Dara; Chewing Gum Dreams; Home; Hymn; The Doctor’s Dilemma (National Theatre); Hir; Disgraced (Bush Theatre). Her work for television includes The Outside Dog; No Masks. Fall has also directed at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and led participation initiatives with partners such as the Young Vic, Clean Break, Soho Theatre, and the Royal Court.
James Graham
James Graham
For the Almeida: Tammy Faye (also Broadway, nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Musical); Ink (also West End/ Broadway, nominated for an Olivier Award for Best New Play and a Tony Award for Best Play).
Theatre includes: Best of Enemies (Young Vic); Quiz (Chichester Festival Theatre/ West End); Labour Of Love (West End, Olivier Award for Best New Comedy); This House (National Theatre/ Chichester Festival Theatre/ West End/ UK tour); Monster Raving Loony (Theatre Royal Plymouth/ Soho Theatre); Privacy (Donmar Warehouse/ Public Theater, New York); The Vote (Donmar Warehouse/ More4); The Angry Brigade (Theatre Royal Plymouth); Finding Neverland (American Rep Theater/ Broadway); The Whisky Taster (Bush Theatre); Bassett (National Theatre/ Bristol Old Vic); The Man; Sons of York; Little Madam; Eden’s Empire; Albert’s Boy (Finborough Theatre); A History of Failing Things (Theatr Clywd); Tory Boyz (Soho Theatre); Coal Not Dole; The Tour Guide (Edinburgh Fringe).
Film includes: X + Y (selected for the Toronto International Film Festival 2014).
Television includes: Sherwood; Quiz; The Crown; Brexit: The Uncivil War; Coalition; Prisoners’ Wives; Caught In A Trap.
Radio includes: Where Shall I Go? What Shall I Do?; Diving the Union; The Grudge; How You Feelin’ Alf?; Albert’s Boy.
Ava Pickett
Ava Pickett
Ava Pickett is a writer and performer; she graduated from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2018 and was also a member of Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab of that year. In 2020 Ava was a resident Playwright at The Mercury Theatre in Colchester.
Ava is also currently developing ideas with Calamity, Big Talk, and Drama Republic with whom she is currently writing a pilot script of her original 60 min show Molly for BBC One. Her half hour comedy The Great Brittons is being developed with Golden Path and has been optioned by Channel 4. She is also writing on Danny Brocklehurst’s latest show Ten Pound Poms for Eleven.
Ava is adapting 90’s film Pret-A-Porter into a TV Series for Miramax and Paramount Plus. She will go on to adapt the first in M.A Bennett’s series of S.T.A.G.S novels for Annapurna and Urban Myth, and then John Wyndham’s The Trouble With Lichen for Route 24.
Radio includes: Roots (Radio 4).
