How to enter

Deadlines

This year's Playwriting Prize submissions open on 12th April 2021, with the deadline for submissions being on 31st June 2021

The final award ceremony will now take place in May 2022.

Fees

The fee to enter is £20. This is non-refundable. The entry fee helps cover some of the Prize administration costs, such as reading fees. Our final judging panel generously donate their time and we greatly appreciate this. The Liverpool Hope Playwriting Prize is a not-for-profit initiative and the University does not make any financial profit from running it.

How to submit your script

• All entries must be made online, via the Liverpool Hope University Online Store at store.hope.ac.uk.
• Prepare your cover sheet, elevator pitch and script documents before you start, so you have everything ready to upload.
• Have your payment card ready. The non-refundable entry fee is £20 and must be paid at the point of submission.
• Register your details and follow the instructions on the store.
• Upload your completed Cover Sheet
• Add your Elevator Pitch when prompted.
• Upload your script. Accepted document formats include: Doc, DocX, PDF or TEX, with a maximum file size of 1MB (you may upload up to eight individual 1MB files). Please do not submit any form of supporting evidence. Please note that unfortunately we cannot accept submissions by post, email or any other method. Liverpool Hope University will not be held responsible for entries not correctly uploaded or not received by the Online Store for any reason.

Note: It is vital that play scripts do not contain any means of personal identification; there should be nothing in the header or footer sections apart from page numbers and the first page should contain the title and nothing else. For the avoidance of doubt, the title page must NOT include the name of the playwright. If the script is deemed to reveal the identity of the playwright, the play submission may be withdrawn from the competition at the discretion of the Prize administrators.

Anonymous submission

The Liverpool Hope Playwriting Prize is judged anonymously. This means that both the reading panel and final judging panel do not know the identities of the scriptwriters when they read and score the plays, as we think this makes a fairer way of judging.

We ask all writers NOT to include their name or any other means of identification in the script document. This forms part of the Prize Terms and Conditions.

The Prize administration team allocate each submitted script a unique reference number, which is then used to identify the script throughout the reading and judging process.

The names of the shortlisted writers are only revealed after the final judging panel has taken place and the winners have been selected.