London Royal Court Theatre

Full details

As part of our climate action in March, we are moving to an online script submission process.
During this period of precautionary closure due to COVID-19, we are currently unable to accept any hard copy submissions. We will confirm all submissions already received by Friday 20 March at 5pm. If you have not received a confirmation email by this point, please use the online process outlined below.
If you have any access needs which mean that this submission process is a barrier, please contact literary@royalcourttheatre.com.
The Literary Office is dedicated to finding exciting new plays that ask bold questions about the way we live now. We receive around 2000 plays every year, all of which are considered as part of our commitment to encounter and support playwrights who we may not have otherwise.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
If you are a writer and would like to send us a script for consideration, then the Literary Office is your first port of call. The Royal Court programmes original plays that investigate the problems and possibilities of our time. We are looking for outstanding plays which are formally or thematically original and are unlikely to be produced elsewhere.
Before you submit a script to us, we suggest you familiarise yourself with the Royal Court; come and see the plays being produced in our Upstairs and Downstairs spaces, and look at the archive and reviews of recent productions. This should give you an idea of what we are looking for.

SUBMITTING YOUR SCRIPT
All submitted scripts should have contact details on the first page only.
Please format the file name of your script like this: SURNAME, First name – TITLE OF PLAY.
For example: LEE-JONES, Jasmine – SEVEN METHODS OF KILLING KYLIE JENNER
In order to submit, you will need to click the link at the bottom of the page which will take you to a form.

SUBMISSION CRITERIA
  • We can only accept scripts as a PDF or Word document with a maximum size of 10MB.
  • We are only able to accept full length plays – as a guide, we suggest this would be a minimum of around 50 pages or 35-40 pages for a monologue.
  • We are unable to accept more than one submission from a writer at any one time.
  • We do not read screenplays, novels, poetry collections, radio plays or adaptations.
  • We do not read musicals nor historical/biographical plays as we so rarely have an opportunity to produce this work.
  • Unfortunately, we cannot consider resubmissions or new drafts of plays we have read and responded to, unless we have specifically requested a new draft.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
All submitted scripts that meet the meet our criteria are read by our team of readers, who are professional theatre-makers, directors, actors and writers.
You will receive an automatically acknowledgement of receipt of your script by email. Once acknowledged, we only accept enquiries about your script via this email address: literary@royalcourttheatre.com. We will be sure to contact you to let you know whether or not we wish to proceed with the development of your play.
The reader’s report forms the basis of a recommendation to the Literary Department and, where appropriate, may lead to consideration of the script by the Literary Associates or Literary Manager, the senior Artistic Team at our weekly script meeting and/or additional support for play development through workshops, attachments or readings.
As we receive a large number of scripts through this submissions process, we aim to let you know the outcome of our reading within three to four months of acknowledging receipt. However, it can take us longer than this to fully consider plays, especially if it requires multiple readers as described above.
Unfortunately, we do not have the resources to provide critical feedback or enter into correspondence with playwrights whose work is felt to be unsuitable for further development at the Royal Court.

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR SCRIPT

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We can’t handle telephone enquiries about scripts. So if you have any questions, please email literary@royalcourttheatre.com.
If you have any access requirements which mean that this submission process is a barrier to you submitting work, please do email literary@royalcourttheatre.com or call 020 7565 5050.

WHO WE ARE
Jane Fallowfield, Literary Manager
Milli Bhatia, Literary Associate*
Ellie Horne, Literary Associate
Myah Jeffers, Literary Associate

* Part-time

How we store your data
We take data protection seriously and hereby undertake to look after all personal data in accordance with General Data Protection Regulation which came into force in May 2018 or any forthcoming data protection legislation. As part of our unsolicited script reading process, all personal data related to submissions will be stored securely on our server indefinitely and access limited to the Literary department, who manage the script reading process. The justification for keeping this data is legitimate interest, as we may need to contact writers about the script they have submitted or future work. This information will not be shared with third parties. Scripts will only be stored if they are recommended for a further read by the Literary Department. You have the right to request access to your personal data at any time and can ask to be removed from the database. Please click here for full details of our privacy policy.

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