No Over 40s Please

Today The Stage reports that leading British screenwriters have alleged that UK television broadcasters are biased against drama that feature female characters over the age of 40.

This information has come out as a result of the Equity petition on gender/age imbalance in television drama in the UK, because people pointed out that writers needed to do more to portray a variety of roles for women.

But writers have argued that they often have little say over characters' ages.

One, who did not want to be named, said: "The problem lies with commissioners, who only want to appeal to the young. A case in point might be the BBC's Mistresses, which would arguably be all the more interesting for having a range of mistresses of all ages and backgrounds, as in real life."

The writer continued: "Writers would love to have free rein to portray any age, sex, class, but are constantly getting the message from broadcasters that if you do want to get your script made, the only women they want to see are under 40."

Another writer said commissioners favour male writers, who tend to write about men.

L.A. Inishmore Postponed

The Los Angeles Times reports that the L.A.-based Center Theatre Group is postponing until next year Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore, part of its 2009 season at the Mark Taper Forum. The CTG artistic director Michael Ritchie explained the reasoning to the newspaper:

"It is a show that is for us to do it right would cost us an extra $750,000 above what we could expect in income from ticket sales," Ritchie said of "Inishmore." "It's in this season, but it's in next fiscal year. So we're planning the next season and we decided the move made more sense."

Wilson Milam, who staged the 2006 Broadway production of the eight-character "Inishmore," will direct at the Taper when the play goes up in 2010. No cast has been attached, Ritchie said, and that fact was taken into account when making the decision to postpone. Patrons holding tickets to the play can receive a refund or will be given a credit that they can use toward the purchase at any show at the three CTG theaters.

Ritchie emphasized that while the move was precipitated by concerns about the economy, CTG is financially stable — "and we want to keep it that way."

Sales have been off by about 5%, he said, but CTG's $20 ticket program has given box office a boost. "It's been a great benefit to us. People who normally wouldn't be coming to our shows because of the economy are buying, and yet it doesn't seem to be drawing down from our regular priced tickets."

Write Here, Write Now Winner

IFTN reports that the inaugural Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and Walt Disney Studios Motion (Ireland) 'Write Here, Write Now' screenwriting award has gone to Sonya Gildea for her script Faith.

Gildea will receive at least €7,500 in development funding, as well as extensive promotion within the film industry.

The Judging Panel were: Lenny Abrahamson (Director), David Flynn (United Talent Agency), John Hurt (Actor), Trish Long, (Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Ireland), Sue Bruce Smith (Film Four), and Irvine Welsh (Writer).

The panel also praised Rodney Lee for his script Do Not Pass Go.

Sony Gildea previously wrote and directed the short film "Bua" (Victory), which was a Blindside Production produced by Kirsten Sheridan, and has been behind the shorts "Bodyblow" and "Godless".

JDIFF '09 Winners

The Jameson Dublin Film Festival has ended and the Audience Award went to the American documentary, Anvil! The Story of Anvil.

The Dublin Film Critics Circle (DFCC) also announced their Awards for the festival:

BEST PERFORMANCE

Tom Hardy - Bronson (Winner)
Toni Servillo - Il Divo
Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
Meryl Streep - Doubt

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Winner)
Religilous
Chris & Don: A Love Story
American Teen
Encounters at the End of the World

BEST IRISH FILM

The Secret of Kells (Winner)
Five Minutes of Heaven
The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy
The Daisy Chain

BEST DIRECTOR

Paolo Sorrentino - Il Divo (Winner)
Laurent Cantet - The Class
Werner Herzog - Encounters at the End of the World
Tomas Alfredson - Let The Right One In

BEST FILM
Let the Right One In (Winner)
Il Divo
In the Loop
The Class

Ocars 2009

Last night the winners of the 81st Academy Awards were announced in Los Angeles.

A full list of all the winners can be read on the web site, but here are the categories of most interest to our membership:

Best original screenplay: Milk, written by Dustin Lance Black

Best adapted screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire, written by Simon Beaufoy; based on the novel by Vikas Swarup.

Slumdog Millionaire went on to win another seven Oscars, including Best Film, and Best Director for Danny Boyle.

2008 ZeBBie Awards Ceremony

Highlights from the second annual ZeBBie Awards Ceremony in Dublin, staged on the 26 November 2008.

Voted on by the members of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild, the ZeBBies honour outstanding writing for Radio, Stage and Screen by Irish writers.

The winners of the 2008 ZeBBie Awards:

• Best Television Script: Mark O'Halloran for Prosperity (Episode 3, "Georgie's Story")
• Best Radio Script: Lucy Caldwell for Girl From Mars
• Best Theatre Script: Christian O'Reilly for Is this about Sex?
• Best Film Script: Martin McDonagh for In Bruges
• Honorary Services to Writers Award: Writers' Guilds of America

BAFTA New Writing Forum

Filmbase reports that the next BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum will take place at BAFTA in London in April.

The closing date for submissions is 20 March 2009 at 17.00 GMT.

If you would like your script to be considered, please send a hard copy of the following to

ALEX – ROCLIFFE SUBMISSIONS
BAFTA
195 Piccadilly
London W1J 9LN
England

1. 10 minute Script extract (12 pages maximum) - each page must list your name, script title and page number. The script can be short film, feature, theatre or television – please note we are not accepting theatre or radio scripts on this occasion.
2. Long synopsis - min 350 to a max of 500 words.
3. Short synopsis - max 50 words.
4. Cast break down and outline of each character that appears in extract.
5. Introduction to provide context, outlining where the extract fits into the overall story and must clearly state whether the script is a feature, short, or television drama.
6. A short writing and industry relevant biography - 150 words max – please be specific with titles etc.
7. Only standard script formats will be accepted.
8. Please include your full contact details i.e. name, email and a contact telephone number on your biog page.
9. You should only submit work if you are able to attend on 29 April 2009.
10. We will only accept a maximum of two submissions per writer.
11. All writers will be notified within three weeks of the closing date.
12. No email submissions will be accepted.
13. Please include a stamped addressed envelope if you wish to have your submission materials returned.

Home Nominated

The feature documentary Home, written by Irishman Alan Cooke, received three nominations in the New York Emmy Awards, and Cooke has signed a deal with Cinetic Media of New York to bring it onto Digital platforms like iTunes and Amazon Worldwide.

Home is a view of New York from the perspective of recent Irish Immigrant, and features interviews with actors Liam Neeson, Mike Myers, Susan Sarandon, Rosie Perez, Alfred Molina, as well as writers Fran Libowitz and Frank McCourt. The low-budget film shot was shot on various dates from 2004 -2006.

It has been nominated for: Best Documentary - Dawn Scibilia and Alan Cooke; Best Photography - Dawn Scibilia; Best Writing - Alan Cooke. The winners will be announced on the 29th of March in New York City.

Home has already picked up numerous awards including Best Documentary at the Magners Irish Film Festival 2006, Best Documentary award at the 2006 Boston Irish Film Festival and winner at the Chashama Film Festival, New York City 2008.

7 on 7

The BBC Writersroom is looking for writers for a new topical sketch show, called 7 on 7, that will be transmitted on BBC Radio 7 in May 2009.

The show gets comic mileage from the news on each of the last seven days - political, cultural, sports, and trivia. We'll take one day at a time and examine what happened on that day. Or we might use the events on a particular day to talk about a related topic. If a story develops over the week then we can revisit it in the show.

We'll have a regular host and a cast of performers who can recreate the names who've made the news in the last week and play the ones that we invent.

The tone will be lively, satirical, and distinctly irreverent.

The show will be thirty minutes long and initially have a run of ten weeks. We want an array of writers who can extract the maximum comic potential out of what's happened in the news and put some satirical spin on events. We'll use some established writers but we're particularly interested in introducing new writers to radio comedy.

Deadline: 10am, Friday 27 February 2009

Successful applicants will be invited to a masterclass with David Mitchell on Monday 9th March 2009.

Information on how to apply is on the web site.

eQuinoxe Workshop

éQuinoxe Germany is looking for applications for its next screenwriters' workshop taking place during the 26 April - 5 May in Norway. The deadline for English language submissions is 2 March 2009 (the date éQuinoxe communicated to us directly).

An international jury selects 10 talented screenwriters to participate in the workshop. The screenwriters participate in the one-week workshops and masterclasses, and meet for one-to-one discussions with ten advisors from all over the world - internationally known and experienced writers, directors and producers -, who share their knowledge and experiences without remuneration. There is no participation fee.

The workshop will take place from the 26 April - 3 May. The masterclasses occur from 3 - 5 May and are available to the participants, their producers and the local film community. It is not mandatory to have a producer attached, but it helps as éQuinoxe encourages the producer to attend the workshop.

All information on the application process is available on the web site.

Stage Survey Women's Roles

The Stage has created an online survey querying people's perception of the quality of roles available to women and minorities in television and theatre drama.

It only takes a moment to fill in, so please take part.

Equity Petition Grows

The Stage reports that the Equity petition launched last week in the UK to improve the quantity and quality of roles for women in drama broadcast on the BBC, Channel 4, and ITV has already hit 1,000 signatures, and includes celebrities like Playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker, producer Jenny Topper and actor Imelda Staunton. Equity claims that for every female character in a TV drama there are two male characters.

It also says that leading parts are "frequently played by male actors over 45", but argues that women in this age group "start to disappear from our screens", and calls on the major UK television channels to "take action to correct this imbalance".

Staunton was joined in signing the document by fellow actors Maxine Peake, Roger Lloyd Pack, Harriet Walter and Charles Dance.

Peake, who most recently appeared in the BBC drama Little Dorrit, said she agreed "whole heartedly" with the petition and added she would like to see more "female-driven dramas".

Lloyd Pack, best known for playing Trigger in Only Fools and Horses, said he had supported it "in the interest of equal rights" and added: "On a practical level, I'm aware of how difficult it is for my female colleagues to find work and on a cultural one, I don't understand why a whole generation of women should be excluded from story lines as if they don't exist. What I hope would be the result of this petition is that writers would be encouraged to include more older female characters in their scripts."

The petition was created by a new steering group within Equity, dedicated to highlighting the issues regarding female performers.

It includes Equity vice-president Jean Rogers and actress Kate Buffery, who, with other members of the group, took the cast lists of all dramas shown by the major terrestrial channels over a week and found that of 4,565 roles, 2,899 went to men and 1,666 to women.

Buffery, 51, admitted it would be "difficult to shift the status quo" but added: "This petition is saying to broadcasters over 50% of your viewers are women and there is a big voice out there, and that's what we are trying to tap into. The fact most TV is aimed largely at young male viewers is not okay, and it says something rather shallow about our society."

She said that most TV dramas feature young, "nicely-packaged" female performers and claimed more interesting parts for younger women would lead to older women being taken more seriously.

The petition follows a Europe-wide survey conducted by the International Federation of Actors, which found that female performers have shorter careers than male ones and that 60% of women do not feel TV represents them in a realistic way.

Buffery said that although the petition is specifically about television, she hoped it would pave the way to open up discussions about other areas of the performing arts.

Anyone can sign Equity's petition, which is online here.

SOURCES 2 2009

SOURCES 2 is an advanced training programme offering intensive script development workshops in Europe for professional scriptwriters and teams of writers with cowriters, producers or directors with a specific film project for cinema and television.

It's offering seven-day Script Development Workshops in the coming months:

Application fee: €100.
Participation fee: €1,800 per project/writer and €900 per second person committed to the project. Includes the seven-day session (accommodation and meals included, travel costs excluded), supervision during rewriting period, and the second session of one day per project (accommodation, meals, travel costs excluded).

For the workshop at the FilmCamp/Norway, 11th– 19th June 2009, applicants should be focused on feature film projects and creative documentaries.
Submission deadline: 1st March 2009.

For the workshop in Graz/Austria, November 2009, applicants should be focused on feature film projects and creative documentaries.
Submission deadline: 1st July 2009.

Information on how to apply to the workshops is on the web site.

2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Finalists

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced the ten finalists for its 2009 playwriting awards, which are given annually to recognise women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. This year over 100 international plays were submitted for consideration.

The finalists are:

Anupama Chandrasekhar for Free Outgoing (India)
Anupama is a runner-up for the London Evening Standard's Charles Wintour Prize 2008 for the Most Promising Playwright for Free Outgoing. The play was also short-listed for the Peter Wolff-John Whiting Award in the UK.

Lucinda Coxon for Happy Now? (England)
Lucinda has worked at the Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, and the National Theatre in London. Happy Now? won the Writer's Guild of Great Britain 2008 Best Play Award.

Ann Marie Healy for What Once We Felt (U.S.)
Ann Marie is a five-time finalist for Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Short Play Award and a finalist for The Perishable Theater's International Women's Playwriting Festival. She is a member of MCC's Playwrights Coalition.

Michele Lowe for Inana (U.S.)
Inana recently premiered at the Denver Center Theatre. Her play String of Pearls received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. Her work appears in New Playwrights/The Best Plays of 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006), The Best Women's Stage Monologues 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006) and Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann, 2004).

Elizabeth Meriwether for Oliver! (U.S.)
Elizabeth is a recipient of the Newsday Oppenheimer Award for her play Heddatron. She is currently working on commissions from the Yale Repertory Theatre, Ars Nova, and Manhattan Theatre Club.

Chloe Moss for This Wide Night (England)
Chloe is a previous Blackburn Prize Finalist for her play, How Love is Spelt. A graduate of the Royal Court young writers programme, she has been a writer-in-residence at the Bush Theatre and Paines Plough and also writes for television.

Lynn Nottage for Ruined (U.S.)
Lynn has been honoured with a MacArthur Foundation 'Genius Grant' Award, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels award for Literary Excellence, two ATT Onstage Awards, a Heideman Award, and numerous best play awards, including the OBIE. She is a previous Blackburn Prize Finalist for her play Mud, River, Stone. Ruined is currently running at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Kaite O'Reilly for The Almond and the Seahorse (Wales)
Kaite has won various awards for her work, including the Peggy Ramsay Award for YARD (Bush Theatre, London), Manchester Evening News Best New Play of 2004 for Perfect (Contact Theatre Dir. John McGrath) and Theatre-Wales Best Play of 2003 for peeling (Graeae Theatre, dir. Jenny Sealey).

Amy Rosenthal for On The Rocks (England)
Amy has been a playwright-in-residence at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre and was a resident writer at the Royal National Studio. Her play, Henna Night, received a Sunday Times Drama Award.

Esther Wilson for Ten Tiny Toes (England).
Esther is best known as lead writer on the hard-hitting docu-drama Unprotected, which premiered at the Liverpool Everyman in March 2006. It raised the national debate on proposed safety zones in city centres for street sex workers and went on to win the Amnesty International Award for Freedom of Speech at the Edinburgh Festival that summer.

The 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize awards will be marked with a ceremony in London on February 25th. Star of stage and screen and Blackburn Prize Judge, Sigourney Weaver, will present the awards. The winner will be awarded $20,000, and will also receive a signed and numbered print by renowned artist Willem de Kooning, created especially for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. A Special Commendation of $5,000 may be given at the discretion of the judges, and each of the additional finalists receives $1,000.

2010 PROJECT

All members of the Guild are invited to attend The Year of Women in Theatre: a catalytic project that aims to unite the theatre industry in a permanent redress of gender-balance in the onstage artform.

The 2010 PROJECT Development Meetings will take place in two locations:

• The Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild, at Art House, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin, on Wednesday, the 18th of February, 2009 at 11am.
• The Lyric Theatre (offices), at 88A Stranmillis Road, Belfast, BT9 5AD, on Thursday, the 19th of Feburary 2009 at 2pm.

The Twenty-Ten Group – a pro-active, non-producing organisation - is promoting the 2010 PROJECT. It aims to make contact with every artistic director, associate and freelance director, producer, programmer, playwright, publisher, agent, casting director and other industry professionals across Ireland to inspire a concerted, creative response to this challenge.

The industry needs to redress the imbalance of the employment of women actors, directors and writers, and to create full and fair representations of women and womanhood in society.

If you wish to attend the Dublin Project Development Meetings please RSVP at info @ script.ie.

Otherwise email (twentytengroup @ ymail.com) Helen Alexander, the 2010 PROJECT Director, or phone her on: +44-20-8543-4085 / +44-7876-128-418

Business to Arts Awards 09

The closing date for the receipt of applications for the Allianz Business to Arts Awards is 5pm, Friday 20 March 2009.

The Allianz Business to Arts Awards recognise businesses, artists and arts organisations that bring the arts and artists into the workplace to respond to real business challenges, as well as important sponsorship relationships.

We invite you to share the stories of your success with your peers, to demonstrate your pride in what you have achieved and to seek to join a prestigious list of winners which represent the very best of the arts and business worlds in Ireland.

Winning projects demonstrate that working together, the arts unlock opportunities for business whether it’s the promotion of their brand, encouraging creativity amongst their employees or supporting their local community. Partnership, collaboration and creativity are the key words describing a success story.

Peacefire Wins Jury

Nothern Ireland Screen reports that the Northern Irish film, Peacefire, from first time feature writer-director Macdara Vallely, won the Prix du Jury award at the Annonay Film Festival.

IFTA 2009 Winners

The winners of the 6th Annual Irish Film & Television Awards were announced at a ceremony on Saturday night. The full list of the winners is available online, but here are the categories of most interest to our members:

Best Script Film
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges - (Focus Features/Universal Pictures)

George Morrison Feature Documentary Award
Margo Harkin, Joel Conroy, Waveriders - (Besom Productions Ltd)

Best Script Television
Graham Linehan, The I.T. Crowd - (talkbackTHAMES)

Best Short Film
Juanita Wilson, The Door – (Octagon Films)

Register for PLR

The Galway Library blog reported yesterday that Mr. Michael Kitt T.D. — Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government — recently signed Regulations which provide for a Public Lending Remuneration (PLR) Scheme in respect of the public library service.

The Scheme, which will be administered by An Chomhairle Leabharlanna (The Library Council) with the co-operation of the local authority library service, will provide that qualifying authors, whose books are loaned by public libraries, will receive remuneration in respect of such loans.

Under PLR, a payment will be made to registered authors, resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), in respect of books registered with the PLR and loaned by public library authorities.

Authors are required to register with An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, providing an address and bank details, etc. Details of books registered will be entered into an author/title database and checked against bibliographic databases for accuracy. Authors are required to register each title and each edition of each title for which they are claiming payment.

Public library authorities will provide An Chomhairle Leabharlanna with loans data, giving details of the number of times each book in their collections is issued during a specified period.

At the end of the PLR period, the loans data from each authority will be matched to the author/title data and a list of authors whose books have been loaned, and the number of issues of each, will be produced. Authors will then be notified of the amount they are to receive and payments will be made.

Payment will be made to authors in respect of their contribution to the work for which the payment is due. The scheme will allow for the percentage of the payment to be made for various levels of contribution, which include, inter alia, contributions such as sole author, joint author, editor, translator, and illustrator.

The rate of payment will be set each year and will be the product of the total number of loans for which a payment is due, divided by the total amount available. Illustrators, photographers, editors and translators may all register for PLR (providing they are named on the title page of a book).

Dublin Film Maker in Residence Selected

Dublin City Council in association with The Arts Council has announced that Joe Lee has been selected as Dublin City Council's Film Maker in Residence.

Joe grew up in Artane, in Dublin 5 in the 1960s and 70s and has lived for the best part of the last thirty years in Marino, Dublin 3.

Joe studied Fine Art at the NCAD and graduated in the early 1980s. On graduation he specialised in film and video making. Through the late 80s and 90s he worked as a freelance director completing projects with Irish, British and German broadcasters. Central to his work from early on is an exploration of the city of Dublin, its multiple identities and the shifting narratives of place.

From the late 1990s onwards he has worked as a film maker on a series arts based projects with Dublin communities. The focus of these projects has been to work with local people to tell stories of local relevance.

"This residency programme will facilitate me to continue to develop an approach to film making that I have been working on since the mid 1990s. That is, to permit story and actuality in the film process to arise out of a dialogue with people about the reality and experience of place... The Irish urban story is still a relatively new phenomenon. This is the first generation to experience a reflection of contemporary Irish urban life in film, music, literature and visual art. What emerges from these reflections of the contemporary is that there is no single way or approach to telling these stories. What I aim to do in my work is to work with people on the basis of mutual trust, in an attempt to find an authentic voice, to articulate or reveal the reality and patterns of life in places that are, for the most part, just a few miles from where I was born" - Joe Lee

Joe has three objectives for the filmmaker residency. The first is to complete The Markets film, which he has been working on for the past year. Footage already filmed includes 13 interviews with local residents. These interviews range from long time street traders, to archaeologists and community activists, to interviews with younger and older people- including John Giles (who grew up in Ormond Square) and the late Tony Gregory, local TD.

The second is to create new work with communities in the South and South West inner city. This work builds on previous work in these areas and will be completed in the second part of 2009.

Thirdly to disseminate his film and video work of Dublin from the last 25 years. In that time he has made and filmed a great deal about and around the city. The Film Maker Residency programme will allow him to explore ways of making his work more accessible to the general public by linking with the Dublin City Council, Archive Unit, Pearse Street Library.

Record Applicants

Filmbase reports that a record number of 343 applications were received for the January 2009 round of the popular Filmbase/RTÉ Short Film Awards.

The number is significantly up from the 2008 applications and represents a threefold increase on 2007. Given the volume of scripts received Filmbase have announced that there may be some delays in processing the applications which are usually announced in April of each year. All applicants will be kept informed by email. ...

Commenting on the round Alan Fitzpatrick, Director of Filmbase, said "The steady rise in applications to the Filmbase award schemes shows the incredible interest that exists at the moment in making shorts. It's encouraging to see so many new people applying for the first time to the scheme which has always tried to uncover and support new Irish filmmaking talent. This will obviously be an incredibly competitive round of the awards and we look forward to seeing the eventual winners."

Three awards will be made in this round, each consisting of €10,000 in cash and a matching level of production equipment and editing facilities supplied from Filmbase. The awards are run twice a year and the next application deadline will be June 26th.

RIP Hugh Leonard

The Irish Times reports that Irish novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and journalist Hugh Leonard has died at the age of 82.

His plays included The Big Birthday , A Leap in the Dark, Stephen D , The Poker Session , The Patrick Pearse Motel , The Au Pair Man and Da.

Da ran for nearly two years on Broadway and earned Leonard a Tony Award in 1977. It was later turned into a film starring Martin Sheen.

He published two hugely popular volumes of autobiography, Home Before Night (1979) and Out After Dark (1989).

He also adapted a number of classic novels for British television, including Nicholas Nickleby and Wuthering Heights, and until recently penned The Curmudgeon column for the Sunday Independent .

Irish Bear

Yesterday the award winners of the Berlinale Shorts 2009 were announced.

The Golden Bear went to the 10-minute animated short film "Please Say Something" by Irishman David OReilly

On his web site David said:

It's crazy, I think what honours me most is that something so small, made on a single computer in my tiny apartment is considered in the context of world cinema. Also because it was judged side by side with live action films. It's a big step for me but a even bigger one for independent 3d.

Irish Women's Film Festival

Paris Voice reports that the Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris will host the 2nd Irish Women's Film Festival in Paris on September 29th.

The debut festival was hosted by the Irish Chapter of Women in Film and Television in Dublin last October

The one-day Festival, which begins at 10:30 A.M. on September 29th, will feature films and filmmakers from WFTV Ireland and aims to bring together the European film community as well as aid women filmmakers in finding ways to collaborate in the future. The festival is part of the celebration of "le Cinéma au Feminin" and will be opened by Irish Ambassador Ms. Anne Anderson. Writers and directors will have the opportunity to introduce their work as well offer workshops to current film students.

P. J. O'Connor 2009

RTÉ Radio 1 is looking for radio plays under 28 minutes for the 2009 P. J. O'Connor Radio Drama Awards.

The 2009 competition offers prizes of €3,000 for the overall winner, with €2,000 and €1,000 for the second and third prize-winning plays. As well as the prize money, the winners receive the professional production of their play, the chance to take part in a writers' workshop and, the winning and short listed plays are broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1. Short listed entrants will be invited to an awards' ceremony at RTÉ Radio's studios in Dublin in May 2009.

The closing date for entries is 13 March 2009. Rules of the competition, entry forms and further information are available on this website