Critical Stages Touring, Australia’s national touring theatre company, is thrilled to announce the launch of a new playwriting program in partnership with the UK’s Paines Plough Theatre Company.

 Come to Where I Am – Australia will engage at least 7 regional and rural playwrights from around the country to create a new 10-minute story that is a snapshot of what it is like to live in their town right now. These stories will be turned into short video postcards featuring readings by the playwrights themselves. The readings and works will be showcased in a new digital screening room on our website, hosted on Paines Plough’s site and eventually make it to stages around the country.

 Selection is by EOI process and submissions are open now until midnight, Friday 22nd May.

 The project is one of a number of planned responses to the Covid-19 arts shutdown from Critical Stages Touring. CEO Chris Bendall is spearheading the project, based on Paines Plough’s exceptionally successful Come To Where I Am, which has produced over 160 stories since 2010.