County Durham playwright wins prestigious new theatre commission
Sarah Bond, from County Durham, is the first ever winner of the Richard Jenkinson Commission - from Laurels in Whitley Bay
A playwright and director from County Durham will get the chance to develop her work into a full play - winning funding and support from a North Tyneside theatre.
Sarah Bond is the winner of the inaugural Richard Jenkinson Commission from Whitley Bay's Laurels theatre.
It means she will win £10k, and development support to take her idea "Seagulls and sad, sad, stories" into a full show with a three week run at Laurels, with a transfer to London.
A ceremony on Sunday night revealed Sarah as the winner, and further support was also announced for the 7 other finalists, who will share another 10 thousand pounds for funding and production advances, as well as further development support.
Those finalists include Dave Bibby, Scrapper Reed, Peachplant Productions, Lydia Brickland, Kerry Fitzgerald, Elliott Kerrigan and writing trio Hannah Sowerby, Jamie McCleish and Lynne Patrick.
Jamie Eastlake is the Artistic Director at Laurels, he says he left the North East to kick start his career - and hopes other writers won't be forced to, and is hoping projects like this will allow creatives to stay and make work here;
"I moved away from the North East when I was nineteen, twenty and did the Dick Whittington thing of thinking the streets were paved with gold in London.
"Because I felt like knocking on doors in the North East was really difficult.
"Laurels sort of represents this - a building where we can try and rocket-ship talent into the ether and give opportunities that people might not necessarily have,
"So the Richard Jenkinson Commission sort of sums that up."
Jamie goes on to explain the story behind the name:
"Richard was my exec producer, when I was in London, Richard sadly passed away five years ago now
"Richard was a huge support and wanted to be an advocate for new writing and the development of new talent
"his mother was from the North East - so I always wanted to do something that had his name attached to it."
We caught up with winner Sarah, who tells us it is thrilling to see an unfunded venue like this putting so much faith in new writing:
"What Laurels is doing is giving creatives the opportunity to make work in the North East without having to worry about the money behind it - which is a big part of it.
"Everybody walked away with something - which is amazing - what that now means is that everybody who was there can go away and produce something original and fantastic, which is so cool."
She tells us it is a bit of a daunting prospect, but she's excited to get started;
"This will be one of the first times I've ever tried to write a stage play, so to have the support from the team at Laurels - who are so fantastic - is amazing,
"It's a great opportunity for an emerging creative, in the early stages of their career, to have the support and the opportunity to explore!"
You can find out more about Laurels theatre in Whitley Bay online and social media.