17 July 2020

Sphinx Theatre Company today launch their Sphinx 30 programme to mark their 30th anniversary and the Everyman & Playhouse are thrilled to be one of 15 regional partners taking part.

Sphinx are the UK’s longest established women’s theatre company. This ground-breaking programme aims to become an ongoing initiative to support female playwrights in the UK, designed by Sphinx’s Literary Director Jennifer Tuckett, based on her work with Yale School of Drama and the Women’s Project (WP) Lab in America, and is the first of its kind in the UK.

15 regional theatres will partner with 15 female playwrights selected after an open call and co-funded by the 15 theatres taking part and Sphinx. Each playwright will receive a £1000 seed commission and attend the Sphinx Lab, where tutors will include leading female playwrights and industry leaders.

For the Everyman & Playhouse, our chosen writer is Ginni Manning who has recently taken part in episode 2 of Love, Liverpool. Ginni is a playwright and theatre-maker from Liverpool who co-wrote the award-winning play Dipalo. On joining the programme she said:

“I’m absolutely delighted and very grateful to be representing the Everyman Theatre on the Sphinx30 Project. It’s the theatre where I started my learning journey and has continued to be support me. Sphinx has such an amazing legacy of female playwrights, and there are so many women writers here in the Liverpool/the North West that I respect. I hope I do everyone proud and am so excited about being part of a new network with the other participants.”

On announcing today, Gemma Bodientz Artistic Director at the Everyman & Playhouse said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Sphinx Theatre on this wonderful initiative to celebrate their 30th Anniversary. Plays by women performed on the main stages of our national and regional theatres are sadly still something of a rarity; the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse are proud to be part of a project that seeks to change that. Ginni Manning is a Liverpool writer we have long been excited by and this partnership allows us to support her in this next exciting chapter of her career.”

Ginni is a playwright, theatre-maker and from Liverpool who co-wrote Dipalo, the

@ASSITEJ

award-winning play. Ginni is also part of the

@bbcwritersroom

Northern Voices programme.

Tutors on the Lab will include leading female playwrights Winsome Pinnock, the first black female playwright to be produced at the National Theatre, April de Angelis, author of the modern classic Playhouse Creatures and My Brilliant Friend, recently produced at the National Theatre, and Timberlake Wertenbaker, author of the modern classic Our Country’s Good [staged at the Playhouse back in 2007]. Other tutors include industry leaders Dame Rosemary Squire, co-founder of ATG and Trafalgar Entertainment, Toni Racklin, Head of Theatre and Dance at the Barbican Centre, Stephanie Sirr, Chief Executive of Nottingham Playhouse, Brigid Larmour, Artistic Director of Watford Palace Theatre, Sphinx Literary Director Jennifer Tuckett and Sphinx Artistic Director Sue Parrish.

Other theatre taking part in the programme are: Bush Theatre, Derby Theatre, Graeae Theatre Company, Hull Truck Theatre, Kali Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, Nottingham Playhouse, Octagon Theatre Bolton, Red Ladder Theatre Company, Salisbury Playhouse, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Theatr Clwyd, Watford Palace Theatre and Yellow Earth Theatre.

The initiative is additionally supported by Arts Council England.

For more information on Sphinx 30 please go to www.sphinxtheatre.co.uk