The Royal Court Theatre has revealed which writers have been selected to take part in its inaugural Open Submissions Festival, which aims to showcase stand-out new writing.
The plays will be performed as staged readings in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs across a week in early April, each paired with a director and a professional team, to give these plays the best possible industry spotlight.
The writers featuring in the Festival are Mary Higgins, Rhys Warrington, Noga Flaishon, Jack Nicholls and Benjamin Kuffuor. The plays are directed by Katie Mitchell and Ellis Buckley, Blanche McIntyre, Daniel Goldman, David Byrne and Aneesha Srinivasan and Nancy Medina.
The writers were selected from the Royal Court’s year-round open submission portal, which offers the guarantee that every play submitted through it will be read by a team of readers.
The festival takes place from Monday, April 7 – Saturday, April 12, 2025, in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. Tickets here.
Here’s the full list of shows:
very wet
By Mary Higgins, directed by Katie Mitchell and Ellis Buckley
Monday, April 7, 2025, 7.45pm
Rain. Nell arrives at a half-drowned house in rural Scotland to confront Brigid, her dead mum’s ex lover. Rain. Her boyfriend follows. Rain. Four people find themselves neck-deep in a looming eco-crisis and sucked into the currents of the past. Flood.
Monument
By Rhys Warrington, directed by Blanche McIntyre
Wednesday, April 9, 2025, 7.45pm
With the eyes of the world watching, a Welsh farming community gathers to vote on whether or not to build a Memorial. But what does this Memorial commemorate? Why is it so contentious? And how, when the time comes, will you vote?
Memoriam
By Noga Flaishon, directed by Daniel Goldman
Thursday, April 10, 2025, 7.45pm
The near-future. Memories can be bought and sold. Rachel negotiates those deals, helping people to share experiences, to heal the gaps in their own lives. She knows her job makes a difference. Until she’s tasked with extracting a precious memory from her own grandmother, Rivka, the last survivor of the Holocaust. She is forced to ask: is this a vital historical record, or commercial exploitation of victimhood? Is reliving unimaginable suffering ever justified? And what has generational trauma done to her family? Memoriam is a searingly observed examination of remembrance, Jewish identity and the burden of history.
The Shitheads
By Jack Nicholls, directed by David Byrne and Aneesha Srinivasan
Friday, April 11, 2025, 7.45pm
Tens of thousands of years ago, Britain’s earliest inhabitants reckon with care, family, and the weather.
Working Men
By Benjamin Kuffuor, directed by Nancy Medina
Saturday, April, 12 2025, 7.45pm
A fatal incident on a council estate leads a team of employees to retrace their steps as senior management, local counsellors and the wider public are in search of someone to blame.
Top image: Mary Higgins, Rhys Warrington, Noga Flaishon, Jack Nicholls and Benjamin Kuffuor (images supplied)