The Student Guide to Writing, a new competition from the Bush Theatre, Oberon Books, the MA Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins and Writers at Work Productions, begins

The Student Guide to Writing: Playwriting, a new competition from the Bush Theatre, Oberon Books, the MA Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins and Writers at Work Productions begins today.

Over the next five weeks, writers from across the UK can follow lesson plans written by industry leaders to build up a play week by week.

The competition provides access for the first time to the leading training coming out of the industry and is free to follow.

At the end of the 10 lesson plans, writers can submit their work via www.thestudentguideotwriting.com with 5 winners selected to be showcased at this year's London Writers Week at Central Saint Martins.

The student winners and the lesson plans will then be published by Oberon Books at the end of the project to provide permanent access to the leading industry training and simple lesson plays via which to build up a play step by step for the first time.

Course Leader of the new MA Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins Jennifer Tuckett said: “Our research at Central Saint Martins showed that the lack of diversity in the writing industry begins at school and University level. We've pledged to provide access for students and teachers across the UK to the leading dramatic writing training coming of the industry for the first time".

The competition is based on the Year of Experimentation investigation into the future of dramatic writing training which was conducted at Central Saint Martins over the last two years with 11 leading industry professionals [Ola Animashawun, founder of the Royal Court Theatre's world famous young writers programme, John Yorke, founder of the BBC Writers Academy, the most influential training programme in the UK, Fin Kennedy, founder of Schoolwrights and Artistic Director of Tamasha Theatre Company who won the first Fringe First ever awarded for a school production, Nina Steiger, Associate Director at the Soho Theatre, Philip Shelley, founder of the Channel Four screenwriting course, Steve Winter, co-founder of the Old Vic New Voices 24 Hour Plays and TS Eliot exchange and Director of the Kevin Spacey Foundation, Caroline Jester, former Dramaturg at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the author of the book Playwriting Across the Curriculum, Stephen Jeffreys, former Literary Associate at the Royal Court Theatre whose Playwriting Masterclasses have led the way in the UK, David Edgar, founder of the UK's first MA in Playwriting and Kate Rowland, founder of BBC Writersroom and the former Creative Director of New Writing at the BBC].

The Student Guide to Writing: Playwriting is the first initiative to come out of the Years of Experimentation to improve dramatic writing training, providing access for the first time for students and teachers at schools and Universities across the UK to the leading training coming out of the industry.

An outline of the competitions shape and contents can be found below.

10 leading professionals have now committed to writing lesson plans as pat of The Student Guide to Writing: Playwriting to provide access to their training.

The lesson plans will be published via the website www.thestudentguidetowriting.com and the first lesson plans have been released on 18th January 2016

Lesson plans will be released from January to March 2016 and will be:

Week One: Starting Out – Rob Drummer, Associate Dramaturg, Bush Theatre

Week Two: Ideas – Ola Animashawun, founder of the Royal Court Theatre's world famous young writers programme

Week Three: Structure – John Yorke, creator of the BBC Writers Academy, the most influential writing training programme in the industry in recent years, and author of the best selling book on storytelling Into the Woods

Week Four: Scenes – Jennifer Tuckett, Course Leader of MA Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martins

Week Five Characterisation – Rebecca Lenkiewicz, playwright and mentor from the Bush Theatre

Week Six: Dialogue – Fin Kennedy, founder of Schoolwrights and Artistic Director of Tamasha Theatre Company

Week Seven: Theatricality – Steve Winter, co-founder of the Old Vic New Voices 24 Hour Plays and TS Eliot Exchange and Director of the Kevin Spacey Foundation

Week Eight: Rewriting – Caroline Jester, former Dramaturg at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and author of Playwriting Across the Curriculum

Week Nine: Staging Your Work – Caroline Horton, writer, director, actor and mentor from the Bush Theatre

Week Ten: Final Advice – Lucy Kerbel – founder of Tonic Theatre and creator of Platform

Students and their teachers can follow the lesson plans to build up a play week by week.

At the end of the competition, 5 student winners will be selected to attend a bootcamp on playwriting at Central Saint Martins and see their work performed and published by Oberon Books.

The categories of winner are: schools, colleges and University, emerging and general as the competition seeks to encourage anyone to be a student of playwriting.

At the end of the project the lesson plans and winning work will be published by Oberon Books to provide a book for use by students and teachers in schools and Universities across the UK to improve dramatic writing training the UK and provide permanent access to the leading training.

Associate Dramaturg at the Bush Theatre Rob Drummer said: “We're delighted to be partnering The Student Guide to Writing which forms part of our efforts to inspire and develop playwrights from a diverse range of backgrounds and to engage audiences nationally in new theatre writing."

Senior Editor at Oberon Books George Spender, said: "“All of us at Oberon are thrilled to be a part of this extremely exciting project that will no doubt have a tremendous influence on the next generation of writers and theatre makers."