An Overview of Genesis and the Royal Court

The association between the Royal Court theatre and the Genesis Foundation pre-dates the setting up of the Foundation. The founder and Chairman of Genesis, John Studzinski, became interested in the work of the Royal Court in the 1990s. He was particularly struck by their commitment to finding new playwrights. At that time, the UK Young Writers programme was funded; but a new initiative was being started by Elyse Dodgson to find aspiring playwrights abroad, create workshop situations on their home territories in which they could grow; and then bring the best of the resulting scripts to the Royal Court for consideration, translation and, where possible, full production.

As Elyse Dodgson explains elsewhere, the process grew slowly over a number of years. With the founding of the Genesis Foundation, the organization took over the funding on a regular basis. The commitment is to a number of two-year cycles: the "on" year, and the one which is of particular interest to us, being the period during which Elyse Dodgson and her colleagues run workshops in places like Russia, Germany, India, Brazil and Cuba; and the next year being the one in which developed plays are considered and as many as possible are given full productions at the Royal Court in London.

Recently, and very gratifyingly, one of the International Playwrights, the young, productive and exceedingly talented Vassily Sigarev, won an Evening Standard Award for his very first London presentation, Plasticine. A second play by Sigarev, Black Milk, was presented less than a year later to general critical acclaim, again supported by Genesis.

The UK Young Writers project is an exact complement to Elyse Dodgson's international initiative. It is run by Ola Animashawun and, roughly speaking, its workshops happen in the year that the International Playwrights are being presented on stage; and its results are honed and presented on stage in the year that the International workshops are taking place all over the world. In 2002 when the opportunity arose, Genesis took over the sponsorship of this project too. Genesis has committed itself to a programme for this project that will put it in the same league as the International programme for production values, spreading of its net in its search for talent, and general size and seriousness.

As well, Genesis has been instrumental in forging a link with Human Rights Watch. The 2002 International series had a Human Rights Focus and several short plays were commissioned from all over the world for platform readings during the period of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. It is hoped that this association will continue in various and fruitful ways for both institutions.