Bill Cashmore Award: One Act Play Prize

Submissions are now OPEN for the Bill Cashmore Award: One Act Play Prize.

The Bill Cashmore Award offers a paid opportunity for two new one-act plays by writers aged 18-30, to be professionally produced at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Bristol Old Vic.

The two winning plays will run as a double bill and will be performed by the Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company and Young SixSix in April 2027, and the Lyric’s SPRINGBOARD trainee actors in August 2027.

The award is kindly supported by the Bill Cashmore Award Founder Sasha Bates.

We particularly welcome submissions from those who are underrepresented in theatre and/or situated in areas culturally underserved- please see our FAQs for more information on this.

To submit, you must:

• Be aged 18-30 at the time of submission and based in the U.K. (incl Northern Ireland)
• Be without professional literary representation (ie. a literary agent)
• Have no more than 2 professional writing credits

Your script must:

• Be suitable for a cast of 5 actors aged 16-25
• Be written for stage by a single author
• Be no more than 25 pages with a running length of 30 minutes, not including the title page and character descriptions
• Be submitted in size 12 Arial font
• Not have been previously professionally staged to a paying audience (R&Ds and sharings are not included in this criteria)

The two successful writers will:

• Receive a fee of £4,078.47 (exclusive of royalties)
• Be creatively involved in shaping the marketing and involved in the rehearsal process
• Receive dramaturgical support from both the Bristol Old Vic and the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre
• Receive complimentary invites to tickets to all performances in London and Bristol
• Be invited to Lyric and Bristol Old Vic Press Nights

Any questions? 

Join one of our online drop in sessions in July and August, or take a look at our FAQs.

How to Apply

Applications are now open!

Please apply via the Lyric website here: The Bill Cashmore Award - Lyric

Applications close on Tuesday 25^th August at 12pm. All scripts are anonymised from personal information before being submitted to our panel.