The National Theatre’s incoming director, Indhu Rubasingham, and theatre producer Ellie Keel were among guests speaking of their collaborations with Paines Plough – Rubasingham in tenure at the Kiln theatre where she staged Amy Trigg’s Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me (which Trigg charismatically reprised in a screen extract) and Keel as co-founder of the Women’s prize for playwriting.
James Graham unveils AI comedy at ‘greatest hits’ gala for Paines Plough Playwrights and actors paid homage to the small but mighty UK theatre company that nurtured them, as part of a fundraising initiative for new writers.
The scenario is, thankfully, artificial itself: a short new satirical work by James Graham, written to mark the 50th anniversary of Paines Plough, which has championed new writing and helped kickstart the careers of Graham and a glittering alumni of other leading British playwrights.
Joint artistic directors Katie Posner and Charlotte Bennett, hosting the night, spoke of new writing not as “the future of theatre, but as theatre itself”.
Morgan recalled how Paines Plough had saved her life as a writer in the 1990s but also spoke of the deluge of writers leaving theatre for screen work.
