Everyman and Playhouse to help UK celebrate female playwrights in this new programme

Liverpool’s Everyman & Playhouse are to be one of 15 regional partners taking part in the Sphinx Theatre Company 30^th anniversary celebrations. 

Sphinx are the UK’s longest established women’s theatre company. This ground-breaking programme aims to become an ongoing initiative to support female playwrights in the UK.

15 regional theatres will partner with 15 female playwrights selected after an open call and co-funded by the 15 theatres taking part and Sphinx. Each playwright will receive a £1000 seed commission and attend the Sphinx Lab, where tutors will include leading female playwrights and industry leaders.

For the Everyman & Playhouse, the chosen writer is Ginni Manning who has recently taken part in episode 2 of Love, Liverpool. Ginni is a playwright and theatre-maker from Liverpool who co-wrote the award-winning play Dipalo.

On joining the programme Ginni said:

“I’m absolutely delighted and very grateful to be representing the Everyman Theatre on the Sphinx30 Project. It’s the theatre where I started my learning journey and has continued to be support me. Sphinx has such an amazing legacy of female playwrights, and there are so many women writers here in the Liverpool/the North West that I respect. I hope I do everyone proud and am so excited about being part of a new network with the other participants.”

On announcing today, Gemma Bodientz Artistic Director at the Everyman & Playhouse said:

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Sphinx Theatre on this wonderful initiative to celebrate their 30^th Anniversary. Plays by women performed on the main stages of our national and regional theatres are sadly still something of a rarity; the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse are proud to be part of a project that seeks to change that. Ginni Manning is a Liverpool writer we have long been excited by and this partnership allows us to support her in this next exciting chapter of her career.”

Tutors on the Lab will include leading female playwrights Winsome Pinnock, the first black female playwright to be produced at the National Theatre, April de Angelis, author of the modern classic Playhouse Creatures and My Brilliant Friend, recently produced at the National Theatre, and Timberlake Wertenbaker, author of the modern classic Our Country’s Good [staged at the Playhouse back in 2007].

The initiative is additionally supported by Arts Council England. For more information on Sphinx 30 please go to www.sphinxtheatre.co.uk

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