The Outside Edge theatre company pictured in rehearsal
Do you have a play inside you? Are you itching to see your original writing performed by an innovative drama group?
The UK’s only theatre company focusing on addiction and substance misuse – the Parsons Green-based Outside Edge – is celebrating its 20th birthday by launching a scriptwriting competition.
Entries for the Phil Fox Award for Playwriting – named in honour of the theatre company’s founder – will be judged by Enda Walsh, the Irish writer and award-winning author of Disco Pigs.
Announcing the competition at an evening of performances at White City’s Troubadour, Outside Edge artistic director Matt Steinberg explained: “Twenty years on, Phil Fox’s incredible legacy is still being felt by thousands of past and current Outside Edge participants affected by substance misuse.
“So, it’s a privilege to celebrate the extraordinary impact this organisation has had on so many people’s lives in both community settings and through our work on professional stages across the country.”
The Munster Road company’s ethos is that theatre can help lead people out of addiction and into recovery.
Phil Fox, a playwright, director, actor and recovering heroin addict, ran Outside Edge for 15 years, until his death in June 2014, growing it from a weekly drama group established at a treatment centre.
At one performance, touched by a production highlighting substance abuse, an audience member jumped to her feet and shouted: “That’s me; that’s my life!”
Eight years on, Sonya Hale – who then attended drama workshops and began to write plays – is one of the creative forces at Outside Edge.
The charity, whose patrons include Mark Rylance, Pierce Brosnan, Anna Chancellor and ex-Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, runs monthly acting and writing workshops which are free to attend and are open to anyone affected by substance misuse.
For full details and rules about the playwriting competition, visit the Outside Edge Theatre Company website.
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