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Revival in English theatre

MMU research findings

NEW research on the English theatre has observed a mini-revival in new plays being performed after decades of slump.

New plays have broken out of the ‘studio ghetto’ into the mainstream and are performing well at the box office, according to an Arts Council-commissioned report by experts including Julie Wilkinson of MMU’s Department of English.

The report Writ Large: New Writing on the English Stage 2003-2009 is good news for young and emerging playwrights, not least from university courses such as MMU’s English degree which offers an option of scriptwriting under a professional writer.

"Our findings challenge the view which underpins earlier Arts Council policy that text-based drama is dying and that writers are less important than performance drama,” said Julie Wilkinson, herself a writer for television and stage.

Student scriptwriters

"The fact that theatre writing is alive and flourishing as never before is good news for MMU's student scriptwriters and food for thought for policymakers in the arts."

Since the mid 1970s, playwrights have campaigned for more new plays to be given stage time to break the dominance of the ‘old favourites’ and ‘out-of-copyright’ plays, and to recognise the talent of today’s generation.

The researchers, under David Edgar, chair of The Writers’ Guild, quizzed 65 regularly funded English theatre companies about their output and its success, and found that since 2003, the amount of new work in the repertoire had more than doubled to 42%.

They found significant increases in new adaptations and writing for children (20% of all new writing) and an increase in work devised by actors (7% of performances). New plays sold well too, outselling the average in 2008.

Triumph

Most strikingly, new plays are breaking out of the ‘studio ghetto’, with the majority now watched in auditoriums of over 200, and the average box office performance of new plays on main stages was a healthy 65%, and rising.

"The last decade represents a triumph for Arts Council policy (to boost new writing) and for artistic directors who refused to accept the presumption that new plays empty theatres," added David Edgar.

The Arts Council report was produced by The British Theatre Consortium, consisting of:

David Edgar, Chair of the Writers’ Guild
Dan Rebellato, Royal Holloway University
Janelle Reinelt, Warwick University
Steve Waters, Birmingham University
Julie Wilkinson, Department of English, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Julie’s last play was On Saturdays This Bed is Poland, toured by New Perspectives Theatre Company and she is currently working on two new commissioned stage plays.

Click here to see the full report, or read David Edgar's column in The Guardian

Published Friday, 11th December 2009