Young playwrights “excellent” says artistic director

During the Summer 2020 Steel Valley Beacon Arts organised a playwriting competition for their youth members. The challenge was to write an original play lasting twenty minutes, covering any topic they liked.

Four girls, Chloe Nightingale, Rhona Hirst, Isabel Dungworth and Izzy McGrail took up the challenge and at Christmas the plays were sent off to Rob Hastie, Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres to judge.

Rob was so blown away with the writing that he offered not only to judge the plays but to give the girls detailed feedback.

Rob said, “I’ve deliberated long and hard, and eventually with great difficulty chosen a winner. It was very tough as the writing was all really excellent” Rob chose the play written by Izzy McGrail, a gothic horror called “Last Tuesday”. As well as £50 prize, for the winner from Steel Valley Beacon, Rob Hastie has kindly given them free tickets to see “Talent” written by Victoria Wood.

Mandy Aitken Artistic Director of Steel Valley Beacon said, “All four plays are wonderful, we are going to put them into production and give the girls the chance to see their work come to life. Working with them through a tough year has been joyous.

Our work at Beacon is develop artistic talent, acting, writing, dancing, singing, producing, direction and over the next few weeks our tec team will start to run workshops on sound, lighting and film. We want anyone who has a passion for the arts, anyone who has ever dreamed of getting involved to come and join us. We now offer our younger children passports to leisure through Sheffield Children’s University, in October we start our Arts Award Program and over the next six to twelve months we will also offer drama exams through LCM (London College of Music). As well as all this we are preparing to perform “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in September and auditions in November for a major production in June – on the scale of “Oliver”.” All this running alongside weekly workshops for children age 5-11 yrs, 11 – 19 yrs and adults.