VCA PLAYWRITING AWARD
Playwrights, we need YOU!
Since 2025, VAULT Creative Arts has run the VCA Playwriting Award – at The Glitch, and now at LowMAC. Over that time, we’ve received applications from hundreds of playwrights, and put on some very exciting shows.
Each year, around November, we put out an open call for early career playwrights who have brilliant scripts that will run between 60 and 90 minutes. The exact rules vary year-on-year.
From these applications, we shortlist up to 15 scripts. Shortlisted applicants receive written feedback on their script and access to our artist card for a year. 2 runners-up additionally receive direct dramaturgy support and mentoring from our artistic director.
The winning writer receives all this, as well as a £2,500 prize. Their show is then produced in-house at LowMAC for a fully realised 4-week run.
TIMELINE
Oct/Nov
Applications are open for 5 to 6 weeks. Each year, we receive around 500 applications. At this stage, writers are asked to submit the first 10 pages of their script
Nov/Dec
The LowMAC team initially review every submission to create a shortlist of about 15 scripts. These writers are asked to submit their full script to us.
Jan
The winning script and runners up are selected.
April/May
The winning script recieves a fully-produced 4-week run at LowMAC.
BEFORE I’M DEAD
By James Rushbrooke – Winner 2026
“I’m not going to die happy, I’m going to die really fucking angry and I want people on Radio 4 to hear all about it.”
Zara is dying. But she’s not about to go out without making some noise.
At seventeen, with a terminal diagnosis and a very limited tolerance for nonsense, she has one final project: record her own eulogy, in her own words, before her brain tumour makes that impossible. Funny, angry, and absolutely unwilling to be reduced to her illness, Zara is the last person who needs saving.
Stuart thinks he’s there to help. He’s good at helping – he’s built a career out of it, a quiet, careful life of service that keeps his own grief at a comfortable distance. But Zara doesn’t need managing. She needs witnessing. And that’s something Stuart has never quite learned to do.
Before I’m Dead is a tender two-hander that asks what it really means to see another human being: not the polished performance they present to the world, but the real, inconvenient, luminous truth of them. It shows us that, surprising as they may be, connections are the greatest form of bravery in the face of mortality.
Director – Oliver Savage
Starring Myla Carmen & Pete Ashmore
in defence of adventurous mothers
By Simon Marshall – Winner 2025
“I’d love to say it was Mum’s voice which rallied me on. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even Miley Cyrus’. It was mine.”
Growing up, Theo and Nancy were ready to conquer the world – the next generation of a Derbyshire climbing dynasty, with a mother who was somewhat of a legend in the mountaineering world. Until one day, their mother doesn’t make it home from an expedition.
The two siblings are left to pick up the pieces of a broken world. And as their life begins to take shape, they are faced with a decision – do they follow in their mum’s footsteps, risking it all to conquer the world’s highest peaks? Or can they find adventure at ground level, on the trails more frequently travelled?
A story shared by two siblings on vastly different paths, in defence of adventurous mothers is an intimate and life-affirming exploration of love, loss, and what we leave behind. Join Theo and Nancy for the adventure of the summer as they chart their own paths in the shadow of their adventurous mother. We’ll see you on the mountain!
Directed by Oliver Savage
Starring Lucy Wells and Jack Gray