Sherman Theatre - one of Wales’ leading producing houses - is today announcing a significant expansion to its literary department’s work in 2024-25, following funding confirmation from Arts Council of Wales.
Since its inception in 2021, the Cardiff theatre’s literary department has helped enrich and cultivate new Welsh writing, most recently with Azuka Oforka’s upcoming The Women of Llanrumney.
That work will now include a new strand, named EXPERIMENT, which aims to further diversify and deepen the network of writers with whom the Sherman directly works. EXPERIMENT marks a new chapter in artist development at Sherman Theatre. It offers resourced R&D time for bold, new, English- or Welsh-language projects by Welsh or Wales-based writers and theatre makers with some experience of making work. It enables the literary team to respond to the needs of each individual project and offer a bespoke package of R&D support.
Announcing the new EXPERIMENT strand, Sherman Theatre’s Literary Manager Davina Moss said: “We’ve had so many useful conversations with writers and those chats have really helped us to better understand what writers need from us. One of the things we have learned is that across the sector mid-career artists aren’t often given room to play and grow their ideas nor the space and time to make their best work. We are proud that EXPERIMENT will begin to address this gap, matching experienced artists with unique, bespoke opportunities to push ahead with their work. We can’t wait to hear what artists want to make next.”
Applications for the EXPERIMENT strand are now open, and full information is available on Sherman Theatre’s website here.
The returning EXPLORE and EXPAND strands, for those starting their scriptwriting journeys and those who have written at least one full-length play, respectively, will open in September 2024.
In addition to the EXPERIMENT, EXPLORE and EXPAND strands focussing on further diversifying and deepening the network of writers the Sherman works with, other programmes will continue to share skills and expertise as well as providing open access to resources for the benefit of Wales’ wider theatre sector. Those programmes will include Send Us Your Script; a script submission and feedback programme, and Pit Stop, which gives writers and theatre makers the opportunity to connect with the Literary team.
Sherman Theatre’s literary department has made a substantial impact on the Welsh theatre sector in its first three years. In 2023 the team worked with more than 200 Welsh and Wales-based writers and hosted over 50 sessions for writers. They read and gave feedback on more than 100 scripts by writers new to the Sherman and met 140 of them one-to-one, to talk about their plays and support their career development. The team also offered more than 400 hours of free writing space to artists, using the Writers' Room in the building as a shared resource.