Free unsolicited script service

Soho Theatre receives and reads over 1,500 scripts a year, providing feedback free of charge. A valuable resource for writers, this is also an integral part of the identification of new voices and emerging new talents may be invited to take part in other programmes as appropriate.

Guidelines for Writers

Soho Theatre creates original new work that challenges the status quo by igniting the imaginations of writers, artists and audiences.

We develop theatre relevant to London lives through projects that celebrate creative learning and participation, internationalism and inter-culturalism, free expression and social justice.

We develop a socially and culturally broad audiences’ appetite for theatre and create a buzz around theatre as a living and relevant art form.

Soho Theatre pursues innovation and excellence with a bold vision for the production and development of new work.

We seek to cultivate and support theatre artists with a similar ideal for the theatre. 

As such, the plays we identify for further development share some of the following criteria:

• Social relevance and a strong relationship with the world we live in.
• A broadly intercultural/international point of view and scale, with a sense of wider context and an outward-looking perspective.
• A contemporary and topical flavour.
• Entertaining.
• An expanded theatrical language in the creation of pieces of theatre rather than plays, offering new approaches to familiar stories.
• A dramatic representation of a physical and cultural landscape.
• A pleasure in risk-taking, a sense of bravery, a radical vision.

Submitting your script

If you have written a play and would like to submit it for consideration or feedback, send a copy with a brief covering letter and SAE for return of the script to:
Writers’ Centre Assistant, Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE. We are unable to accept scripts submitted by email.

You will receive written feedback within three to six months, although this process may take longer if your script goes forward to be second read. We read work of any length and accept scripts from abroad (in English.) Please note that we do not accept international postage coupons.

Policies for submissions

Our script reading service provides detailed feedback and suggestions on new work for the theatre. In light of Soho Theatre’s artistic policy (outlined above), we aim to make the script reading service work as effectively as possible, so please be aware of the following policies:
We consider and comment on every submission. In most cases a free report is prepared for the writer, although exceptions are listed below:

• We proactively seek international productions, collaborations and writers. All non-UK submissions will therefore be considered, however we do not have the resources to provide reports on all of them. Redrafted plays should not be sent unless specifically requested by the theatre. Those plays requested will be read, but a further report will be made at the company’s discretion.
• If we have asked for you to send us your next play in the initial report, this will be read, and a further report will be made as appropriate.
• In some instances and at our discretion we will respond to the writer by letter only. 
• We will not report on handwritten scripts; pantomimes; excerpts/incomplete scripts; radio, TV or film scripts; or scripts submitted by email.