Chris Bridgman wins New Writing Encouragement Award
The prestigious Writers' Guild New Writing Encouragement Award was created to acknowledge individuals who have given a writer an especially positive and enriching experience in developing new writing for the theatre... and our very own CHRIS BRIDGMAN has won!
Harvey Cox nominated Chris for all of his support over the years. He
commented on his reasons for nominating Chris: "His constructive
criticism has done a great deal to help me, as a novice, to improve my writing. He
has a superb ability to home in on weaknesses in a script, without undermining
one's confidence. Whenever I leave a discussion with him I feel good about
what has been said and ready to look at my work again and make it better."
Chris responded to news of the Award
nomination: "I was startled - in the very best possible way - to learn I'd
been chosen for the Award; and really honoured that Harvey thought to nominate me. This is a big
endorsement for everything that North West Playwrights does in nurturing
writers at all stages of their development. I'm extremely
pleased that David Thacker's also receiving one of these Awards. We've got a
very active and fruitful relationship with the Octagon Theatre, Bolton; and I
think this double success for the North
West signals the fact that this region has a very
deep and well-integrated culture of writing for theatre."
Artistic Director at the Octagon Theatre Bolton, David Thacker, was nominated by Aelish Michael (writer
of The Demolition Man the Octagon's
forthcoming play about local legend Fred Dibnah) to receive the award. Aelish has been keeping a blog about the process of creating the play which you can find here.