
Neath Little Theatre in association with Neath Arts Festival presents Little Plays!
​​Little Plays: Script Call 2025
*Calling all Writers, Playwrights and Creatives from the Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea Areas.*
Little Plays is a writing initiative hosted regularly by Neath Little Theatre. We platform new short plays, written especially for each occasion, all with a shared theme or key word. This year, we’re bringing Little Plays to Neath Arts Festival for a very special event!
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Presenting Little Plays: icons – A Neath Arts Festival Special
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Are you a writer? A creative? Interested in giving it a go? As part of the forthcoming Neath Arts Festival (15th to 19th October 2025) we’ll be staging five new Little Plays, with an opportunity for you to have your short play performed to a live festival audience.
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We are now accepting submissions for short form plays between 3 and 10 minutes long, inspired by the theme of Icons. Plays will be performed as rehearsed readings by a team of talented actors, with limited production elements – the idea is to give your writing the centre stage.
Are you in?
What next? Write your short play using the key theme Icons, and submit to us by Midnight on Friday 8th August, 2025. Entries should be submitted to LittlePlaysSubmissions@gmail.com​​​
​Please include your name, date of birth, address and contact telephone number with your entry.
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​Submission Guidelines/Terms:
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Writers must be 16 years of age or older. We’d encourage anyone of any age to write, but those under 16 should work with an adult to submit their entry.
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Plays can be any genre or style – Comedy, Drama, Monologue, Traditional, Modern, Sci-Fi… whatever best fits the story you’d like to tell.
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Plays must be between 3 and 10 minutes long. As a guide, this would be up to a page for a Monologue and up to 6 pages for a script. Don’t feel pressured to fill the full 10 minutes – this is the maximum length - but your main focus should be getting your story/idea across in the optimum timeframe.
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The theme: Icons can be interpreted in any way you like and is just a jumping off point for your creativity. It’s a seed to grow your idea from rather than a restriction on what you want to write. Think inside or outside the box – it can just be a reference or a strong feature of your story.
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Plays will be staged from script with minimal production – no full costumes, lights, sound effects, props etc. BUT if you need a key item/prop/costume/sound effect then this can be considered where possible. The idea is that these plays can be staged anywhere.
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You can use up to 5 actors in your play – this will be a mixed group of male and female actors of mixed ages but the challenge for them is to bring your characters to life whatever their appearance, age, gender etc.
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Writers should be residents of the Neath, Port Talbot or Swansea areas. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept submissions from outside these areas.
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The deadline for submissions is Midnight on Friday 8th August 2025. Plays received after this time will not be eligible for entry.
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Submissions should be in a digital format – please provide your script as a Word or PDF document so that they are universally accessible to panel members.
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The five successful plays/writers will be selected by a Festival panel with the performance/s taking place during Neath Arts Festival – 15th to 19th October 2025 (Performance Dates/Times TBC).
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Writers’ names will be redacted before the plays are read by the festival panel in order to make the judging process a fair and anonymous endeavour. There will be no favouritism or special treatment – we’re simply looking to select our favourite plays for the event, regardless of who has written them.
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The successful writers/plays will be notified by Monday 1st September and submissions from entrants that haven’t been selected will also be contacted to let them know the outcome of their entry.
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There is no “prize” or remuneration for the plays selected, except for the opportunity to see your work performed for the festival audience.
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Plays should be original and not have been performed anywhere else prior to the festival. The rights to your work remain with the writer.
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We reserve the right to make minor changes to the plays as part of the rehearsal process but we will endeavour to do this in cooperation with the writers. This might be for dramatic, editorial or practical reasons but this is simply to note that we might require small changes to be made between selection and the performance.
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By submitting a play, you’re consenting to your work being performed during the Neath Arts Festival 2025. There may be multiple performances as part of the festival.
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We reserve the right to change or review the competition guidelines at any given time but this will be communicated to all participants via the various Arts Festival platforms. In the event of cancellation or postponement of the event, we will endeavour to stage the plays at another time or place but this cannot be guaranteed.
Any queries or further questions, please get in touch at LittlePlaysSubmissions@gmail.com.
Happy writing!
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