The Judges

The panel of judges tasked with selecting a winning new British playwright from over 2,000 submissions by previously un-produced writers for Channel 4’s The Play’s The Thing, are top theatre professionals.

Sonia Friedman is one of the West End’s most successful and active producers, keen to bring in new writing. Her recent projects include Jonathan Kent’s critically acclaimed production of Faith Healer which transferred from Dublin’s Gate Theatre to New York this Spring as well as Shoot The Crow, The Woman In White, As You Like It and Whose Life Is It Anyway? In 1993, she co-founded, with Max Stafford-Clark, Out of Joint Theatre Company, now one of Britain's leading and most successful new writing companies. Productions of new plays for Out-of-Joint include: The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry; The Break of Day by Timberlake Wertenbaker; The Positive Hour by April de Angelis; Shopping and Fucking by Mark Ravenhill; and Blue Heart by Caryl Churchill.

Mel Kenyon is a literary agent at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and one of the directors of the company, where she handles many of Britain’s most successful playwrights, among them shockmeisters Mark Ravenhill and the late Sarah Kane

Neil Pearson is well-known to television audiences for numerous starring roles, most notably Drop the Dead Donkey and Between the Lines. His extensive theatre work has most recently included the West End production of Closer, and national tours of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing and Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides.

Stephen Jeffreys is the author of more than 20 professionally produced plays, including The Libertine and I Just Stopped By To See The Man (Royal Court and Steppenwolf, Chicago) and A Jovial Crew (RSC). For the past decade he has been Literary Associate at the Royal Court and also wrote the screenplay for the feature-film of The Libertine, starring John Malkovich and Johnny Depp. Stephen also gives playwriting masterclasses www.stephenjeffreys.co.uk

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