ONLINE PLAYWRITING INTENSIVE

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Centrepoint is looking for emerging playwrights from around Aotearoa to join our Playwriting Intensive programme for 2025! Create a new play with expert guidance and see it come to life on Centrepoint’s stage.

Centrepoint Theatre will accept 12 emerging playwrights into a fully funded 8 week online intensive. This course will be taught by professional playwrights Anya Tate-Manning, Sam Brooks, Pip Hall.

The completed short plays created during the course will be performed on the Centrepoint stage in Sunday Script Sessions, our season of rehearsed readings. Established professional directors will work with local actors to bring your script to life.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested playwrights should fill out this short application and send a small writing sample to leona@centrepoint.co.nz by Monday 31st March.

Writing Sample

As part of your application, we'd love to see a snippet of your writing—it's just two pages, so don't stress too much! This course is designed for emerging playwrights, so there's no need to aim for perfection.

Just a few things to keep in mind:

  1. Follow the Playmarket formatting guidelines, which you can find here.

  2. Please only submit a sample of a play or film script, we're no longer accepting short stories, poetry, or any other creative fiction as writing samples.

  3. Also, make sure your writing has your name, the play's title, and page numbers so we can keep everything straight.

Thanks a bunch, and we're excited to see what you've got!

Taking part in the Centrepoint Playwriting Intensive not only helped me produce a play that I am incredibly proud of, but I developed an elevated level of confidence in my ability to put words onto the bare bones of my ideas. Such an amazingly self-affirming experience.

-Alan Dingley

CLASS INFO

  • Fully funded by Centrepoint Theatre

  • Tutors: Anya Tate-Manning, Sam Brooks, Pip Hall

  • Time: Tuesdays 7.30pm-8.30pm

  • Introduction Zoom Evening: 22nd April

  • Term: 29th April - 17th June (8 weeks)

  • Applications close: Monday 31st March

MEET THE TUTORS

Anya Tate-Manning is a performer, scriptwriter, director and teacher based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, who grew up in Ōtepoti. Her mother is from Turku, Finland and her father from Belfast, Ireland. Anya is a graduate of Otago University, Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa, and has an MA in Scriptwriting from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University. An award winning theatre maker, Anya is the co-founder of the longest running live Political Satire show in Aotearoa; Public Service Announcements, and her solo work My Best Dead Friend toured for 5 years around Aotearoa, Australia and the UK. Anya also teaches in the Acting Department at Te Kura Toi Whakaari o Aotearoa, directs solo comedy shows, has written and directed her first short film (Blue Lake). 

Sam Brooks is an award-winning playwright and journalist. His plays include Burn Her, Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys and Lads on the Island. He has won the prestigious Bruce Mason Playwrighting Award and currently holds the record for the most plays shortlisted for the annual ADAM New Play Award, at 15. He won the award in 2024 for his play This is My Story of Us and several of his other plays have been awarded highly commended. As a journalist, he worked in multiple roles at The Spinoff, and has had bylines published in Metro Magazine, Ensemble, Sunday, amongst others. He currently runs a cultural newsletter called Dramatic Pause.

Pip Hall is an award-winning scriptwriter and playwright. She works extensively in television as a creator, writer, producer, story liner and script consultant.  Credits include One Lane Bridge and Runaway Millionaires, which won Best Drama Series and Best One-Off Drama at the 2020 NZ Television Awards.  Pip has written almost twenty plays, the majority of which were commissioned, and has had work produced by every major theatre company in New Zealand. She received the Bruce Mason award, Aotearoa’s most prestigious theatre writing award in 2009, the same year she won best new NZ Play ( now the Adams’ Award) for The 53rd Victim. 

Thanks for everything! It's been really cool, and it's been great in revitalising my own interest in writing… It's great to know that there's another space in the country that feels like home.

-Benny Marama

FAQ

  1. Is there an age limit? Nope! Emerging can happen at any time.

  2. Do I have to have a set idea all ready to go or a piece already started? No, the idea is you can create a ‘new’ work during the course, you may have an idea rattling around that we can help bring to fruition.

  3. Does my sample writing need to be a complete play? Not at all - we are asking for just two pages. Please see the writing sample notes above.

  4. Will there be homework? Yes, you will have deadlines for your writing to meet and need to allow time on a weekly basis to do that. 

  5. How are the sessions done via Zoom? Links will be sent out by Centrepoint weekly for the sessions with your tutor. You will also have one-on-one session which will be organised at a time that suit both you and your tutor.

The Playwriting Intensive is a must if you're looking for a space that's both professional but also held in exactly the right way, it's an ako space, a collaborative space, and having some outside structure and tautoko is sometimes exactly whats needed to finally finish that script or even get started on one. After all the kōrero and development, seeing your scripts up on their feet, and the nuance that new performers can bring, is incredible. Seeing the real aroha and joy my performers found in my work was such a koha. It's a koha I wish every aspiring writer got to have. 

-Lila Black

Taking part in the 2022 Centrepoint Playwrighting Intensive was the beginning of my journey as an aspiring playwright. Being primarily an actor and fairly new to the ‘writing game’, the course taught me new skills that adjusted my storytelling brain to step away from “But how will this be staged?” and to leave that to the actors, crew and director! This course taught me the fundamentals of approaching stories and creatively challenged me to write regularly – even when my creativity was at its lowest. I would recommend this course and encourage artists from all backgrounds to consider it!

-Jackson Burling

What an experience! I wish I could do it every year! The Centrepoint Playwriting Intensive offers you the opportunity to create a short play that will then be performed on stage! It is a fantastic concept! As a writer, having a timeline and a goal to work to was the perfect structure to keep me motivated. The sessions, both one to one and group, helped me to look at my piece with an analytical eye to make changes, be playful and courageous. I let go of any expectations of myself and just wrote stuff. On the night of the performance, I felt like I was watching someone else’s play.  I delighted in the actor's surprising take on my script and laughed at my own jokes. Gold!

-Mandy Thomas