Have modern playwrights really got what it takes? Some people wonder. Dominic Cooke, recently installed as artistic director at one of the country's central hubs for new writing, London's Royal Court Theatre, is one. Speaking to us in interview a few weeks back, he suggested that today's playwrights aren't pushing the boundaries hard, or aggressively, enough.
"New writing has a way to go in terms of ambition," he says. "It's about how much playwrights can challenge audiences." Shakespeare took risks, this ex-RSC director says; so why can't modern writers?
It's a big question, so today we offer a response by someone on the other side of the stage door. Fin Kennedy has just won Arts Council England's prestigious John Whiting Award with his second play, How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found. It's a work which has, amazingly, yet to be performed, suggesting that Kennedy knows more than most about the frustrations and perils of translating written text into performed drama.
It's difficult to challenge audiences, after all, if you can't find anyone willing to take the risk of getting them into a theatre in the first place. Particularly if, like this one, your play happens boast such exotic complications a lead character who is both dead and alive at the same time.
For the last few weeks, Kennedy has been busy on our behalf, speaking to British playwrights far and wide and corralling together their views. How have they managed to get work produced? What's it like working closely with theatre companies? What are their visions for the future? Their fears?
The response was overwhelming. Some surprising themes emerged - theatre companies apparently enthusiastic about new writing but suddenly turned-off; a conspicuous lack of interest in working with international writers; the year-long travel and research project that ended as a six-month Googling exercise - but, in the end, it seems that money, as ever, has everything to do with everything. How can you write a play that redefines or refreshes the genre when your hourly rate pays less than a menial job in the developing world? "Hath not a playwright rent?", Kennedy asks, cheekily nodding at the Bard. "Hath not a playwright bills?"
So the debate continues. Is Cooke right - do playwrights need to look to the past and raise their game? Or does Kennedy's experience strike a nerve - is the need for writerly fantasy forever being strangled by financial reality? We want to hear from you, whether you're a playwright, director, producer, stagehand, lighting technician, manning a box office - or, of course, someone who is simply passionate about theatre.
