East of England playwriting competition to choose winner at random

The randomly picked show will be part of the Mercury Takeover season, which includes other shows from up-and-coming producers

The winner of a competition to find new plays in the East of England is to be chosen at random, organisers have said.

The Play Lottery will see a writer get their work professionally staged at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester in April.

Organiser Jamie Rycroft said: "In a way, all playwriting competitions are lotteries...

"So we're giving every playwright - however wacky, unorthodox or just plain bonkers their idea - an equal shot at being staged."

The free to enter competition, which organisers claim is the first of its kind in the UK, is open to any writer living in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

The only rules are that the play is original, has one performer and is about an hour long.

The winning play will be staged as a script-in-hand, work-in-progress reading on one night, with a professional performer and director, and the writer will get feedback from established playwrights.

Rycroft, a Cambridge-based producer on the Mercury Theatre's professional development scheme, said there would be "no quality control" - and other than checking to ensure the plays meet the entry conditions, he will "literally draw the name of the play out of a hat".

He added that in many playwriting competitions, "there is always brilliant work that goes totally under the radar" depending on "the particular tastes of the judges".

"I really believe anyone can write a hit play - and I hope this totally level playing field will motivate writers to have a go and make something stunning," he said.

"We think it's an exciting proposition. It's a very big area of England that's often under represented in terms of unsolicited plays being submitted."

Producer Jamie Rycroft said he "can't wait to see what comes"

As a former theatre manager, including at Cambridge's ADC, Rycroft is aware that the arts already feels like a lottery.

"I've always been very conscious that you can turn things down simply because you don't have the space.

"I'm also very aware of how difficult it is for the arts at the moment. Funding is being cut and opportunities are dwindling.

"I think this is a bit of a statement where we are saying that it often feels random how certain writers get selected - and this will literally be at random."

He is also optimistic that audiences will come to see the winning play.

"There's something so exciting about an audience walking into the theatre knowing they could be about to watch anything - a piece of unhinged nonsense, the advent of a theatrical genius, or anything in between," he said.

In the future, Rycroft hopes to expand the contest nationwide using bigger auditoriums and allowing more performers and longer runs.