The National Theatre and Penguin Books launched a new competition this week to find the next generation of young scriptwriters.
The Big Break young scriptwriting competition invites teenagers aged 13 to 18 to write a script based on author Meg Rosoff’s award-winning novel How I Live Now. Using the story, themes and characters as a starting point, competition entrants should submit a treatment and the first scene of a script, to be judged by a panel of experts including Rosoff and playwright Mark Ravenhill, who is adapting Terry Prachett’s novel Nation for the National Theatre this autumn.
Five winners will be invited to the National Theatre Studio to spend a day working with professional writers, directors and actors to workshop and develop their scripts. They will also see a performance of Nation, which opens at the National in November.
The competition is inspired by the National’s recent success in adapting novels for the stage, including Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Jamila Gavin’s Coram Boy and Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, which transferred to the West End where it is still running.
Further details of The Big Break and how to enter can be found on the National Theatre’s Discover website and Penguin’s teen website spinebreakers.co.uk
The competition closes on 30 October and the winners will be announced on 27 November.
CB