Young Harts Writing Festival Returns to the Lyric

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See work of five emerging talents alongside five professional writers

The Young Harts Writing Festival is back at the Lyric Hammersmith on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 April, offering a series of ten new engaging short plays.

Following a competition, five plays written by young writers aged ten to 25 were selected to be performed alongside five plays, commissioned and written by professional writers. Their shared brief was to write a ten minute piece on the theme of 'secrets' in whichever form they wished to interpret it.

Following the success of the festival last April, this year promises to deliver equally original and compelling drama. As before, the audience will be kept guessing as to whether the writer was a professional or a young writer.

The writers and the winner for each night will be revealed at the end of the evening once the audience votes are counted and there are sure to be some surprises.

Funded by the Arts Council, the aim of the festival is to bridge the gap between young creative talents with the industry.

Roy Alexander Weise, pictured above, Associate Director at Harts Theatre Company, and recent winner of the 2016 James Menzies-Kitchen award for young directors will direct the plays.

The line up of professional writers this year are: Charlotte Josephine, Eve Leigh, Gbolahan Obisesan, Martin Murphy and Sabrina Mahfouz.

The five young writers are being supported throughout the process. They were invited to join a master class with acclaimed writer and an Artistic Associate at Lyric Hammersmith, Simon Stephens, who helped to guide them on how best to fine tune their work, prior to submitting their final draft.

In addition each young writer has been appointed a professional writer as his or her writing mentor.

The actors will be a combination of both professional actors and young talent, keeping with the concept of creating an inclusive environment to nurture new talent.

The cast will include actors Lashana Lynch (Lead in ABC’s upcoming ‘Still Star Crossed’), Kerry Bennett (Casualty, Hollyoaks, The Habit of Beauty, 2016) and David Ajala (Fast and The Furious, 2016, Jupiter Ascending, 2015, The Dark Knight, 2008).

Tickets for the Young Harts Festival, on 7 and 8 April at 8pm on both nights, are now available priced £10, or £8 concessions and £5 for under 16s, can be booked online or from the box office on 020 8741 6850.

March 31, 2017