Catch us at VAULT Festival 2023
We're heading underground with not one but two brand new shows to start your year with a bang...Our new writing night Women's Writes Fest will be returning to VAULT with three short plays by female playwrights. Our new line up will take you to an end of pier drag show with Those That Are Special by Emma Zadow, to a social experiment in Los Angeles with The Envelope Play by Beth May and will have the Fab 5 visit London (finally) in All That Glitters by Alex Critoph.
Also, our brand new play with songs And We'll Catch Stardust, Yes We Will will have it's VAULT UK Premiere, this vivid play will take you to the moon and back...
Women's Writes Fest at VAULT
27th Jan 10.30pm & 3rd Feb 10.30pm
THOSE THAT ARE SPECIAL by Emma Zadow
A Drag King and a displaced teen find unlikely friendship in an interval that will forever change them...
Emma Zadow's plays have been performed at the Arcola, the Old Red Lion Theatre, Camden Fringe Festival, Norwich Arts Centre and Pleasance Theatre. Emma is an alumni playwright from the Soho Theatre Writers Lab, and was shortlisted for the ETPEP Award, Tony Craze Award and is a 2023 Mercury Playwright. Her BBC New Creative short Jigging is on BBC iPlayer and recently won and has been selected for many international film festivals.
Director; Zyrenka Cox (A Thousand Eggs, Arcola Theatre)
Starring Alexandra Ricou (His Terectomy) and Natasha Patel (The Witcher: Blood Origin (Netflix), Luther (Netflix) and Vera (ITV)
THE ENVELOPE PLAY by Beth May
What if science could tell you if your relationship was doomed to fail or fated to succeed? A young couple gets the chance to sneak a peek at their future, but should they take a look?
Beth is a poet, playwright and actor from Los Angeles, listed as one of Phoenix New Times' Top 100 creatives in 2015 and a finalist for its Big Brain Award for her play Earthlings. She also hosts and co-stars in podcast 'Dungeons and Daddies' which won the AudioVerse Award for New Improvised Production.
Director; Melissa-Kelly Franklin (We'll Dance on the Ash of the Apocalypse, Park Theatre)
Starring Luke Pierre (Bridgerton (Netflix) & Midsomer Murders (ITV)) and Sophie McQuillan (The Labyrinth Diet, Arcola Theatre)
ALL THAT GLITTERS by Alex Critoph
Jessie's got everything sorted. So when her friends hear that the Fab 5 are coming to London they lie about her perfect life in order to get her a spot on her favourite show. However, as she starts to dismantle everything it unravels in a way she never imagined...
Alex has an MA in Creative Writing. Credits as a Playwright include: Sky commissioned by Theatre 503 & Theatre Centre, WASHED at the Brighton Fringe Festival and GIRL for The Miniaturists at the Arcola Theatre.
Director; Jess Millward (Fritz & Matlock, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, The Pleasance Courtyard and London (OFFIE nominated), I Can’t Hear you, Theatre 503)
Starring Ella Hunter Clark (Casualty and BODIES (Netflix))
And We'll Catch Stardust, Yes We Will
By Alex Critoph
A vivid play with songs.
25th Feb 3.10pm and 10th March 9.25pm
Kat and Emily have masked their love to escape the stigma of Britain in the 1960’s. Reunited on the eve of the Apollo 11 moon landing, rather than confront this they revisit their teenage fantasies of the lives they could have had…maybe a Hollywood Icon…or a Rock ‘n’ Roll star? With so much possibility in the air, their life choices are thrown into chaos.
The world is changing, so why is it that love seems the most impossible thing of all? ‘And We’ll Catch Stardust, Yes We Will’ is an explosive look at love, freedom and what we do to conceal ourselves.
Starring Orla O'Sullivan
Orla is an award winning actor and made her debut short with BBC Arts, featuring in Janina Ramirez’s BBC programme, ‘Women in Film’ as well as picking up numerous awards at film festivals. Other credits include: WARHOL (Dir. Adam Ethan Crow), HAPPY GRADUATION (Dir. Robert Harold), PRAGMA (Dir. Eleanor Heydon).
Starring Anna Fordham
Anna trained in Actor Musicianship at Rose Bruford.
Theatre credits include: Sleeping Beauty (Queens Theatre Hornchurch), Sunshine on Leith, Little Women (Pitlochry Festival Theatre/Watford Palace, The Brothers Grimm Present Cinderella (Barn Theatre), NewsRevue, I’m Eric Get Me Out of Here (New Vic Stoke), Women in Power (NST/Oxford Playhouse), The Borrowers (Watermill), Fantastic Mr Fox (Lyric Hammersmith/UK Tour) TV: The Athena (Sky)
Directed by Leah Fogo
Leah trained as a Composer at The Royal Northern College of Music. Since then she has explored her love for contemporary theatre, honing her skills in community groups in Manchester before moving to London and immersing herself in the vast array of music, drama and dance. Her credits include; Half Me Half You (Tristan Bates Theatre), The Wonderful Discovery of Witches (Dawn State UK Tour) as well as development workshops for Phoenix (VAULT Festival) and Ordinary Days (Online Musical). As well as this she was assistant director on Pine at The Hampstead Theatre and on Children of Eden at The Union Theatre.
About us
Women's Writes is a new writing night for female-identifying playwrights. We're bored of those female archetypes we see on stage and screen and are redressing the balance by promoting women writers. We've had sell out shows at The Arcola Theatre, VAULT Festival 2020 and were nominated for an ONCOMM award for the Women's Writes Online Festival. We've been named 'Empowering' by DIVA Magazine, been featured on BBC Radio London and called 'Politically and socially imperative' by London Theatre Reviews.
"Championing women playwrights can redress the balance by not only creating female characters with more agency but also creating a platform for women’s voices to be heard. I, and many others, want to see more stories about real, fallible, complex, intelligent, brave women – the kind of women I see around me, written by female-identifying playwrights."
Women's Writes Creator, Alex Critoph in The Stage Newspaper
Submit your play
Open submissions for our New Writing nights
We're not currently accepting open submissions. Make sure you join the mailing list for updates!
Writing Workshops
For female-identifying & non-binary playwrights
Writers can bring an extract from something they're working on, hear it read by actors and get feedback & ideas from the group. Great for testing out new ideas.
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