Adopt a playwright

Playwright Kenneth Emson, whose work has been staged at the White Bear and Tristan Bates theatres in London, has been selected as the third recipient of OffWestEnd.com’s ‘Adopt A Playwright’ award. Sofie Mason, founder of the website, runs the annual scheme to “encourage new voices from every corner of our multifaceted society”. The public is invited to contribute to “buy time” for struggling new playwrights to write, by donating anywhere between £5 and £1000, in the fan-made equivalent to offering a writing bursary. Emson, who hails from Essex, follows in the footsteps of Pericles Snowdon (who is still writing his play on Romany gypsies) and Paul Anthony Morris (whose play Identity was completed during his inaugural year). Supporter and fellow playwright Fin Kennedy described Mason’s initiative as being “imaginative in its structure, elegant in its simplicity and timely in its appearance… it could become a model for similar schemes up and down the country”. The idea is to raise at least £10,000 for Essex-born Emson, who is looking forward to the prospect of working “with some time to breathe and think without the landlord banging at your door”.