The 2nd Prize goes to:

Monster
by Duncan Macmillian
Duncan will also receive the bursary for writer in residence

Synopsis

In an attempt to save their relationship, Tom and Jodi have left the city and begun again in a small town. Soon, Jodi is pregnant and Tom has started a new job in the local school. But their new life is turned upside down by Darryl, a disruptive student with an obsession with violence. As Tom’s struggle to get Darryl into a special unit increasingly becomes an obsession, his neglect of his wife seems to be headed towards tragic consequences.

Duncan Macmillan’s Biography

My first play, The Most Humane Way to Kill a Lobster, was written whilst on the Young Writers Programme at the Royal Court and produced at Theatre 503 in March 2005. Another, Satellite, is currently being developed at the Royal Court where it is on the shortlist for the Young Writers Festival. I am a member of the inaugural Old Vic New Voices scheme, and wrote This One's For You, Hula Girl/I Don't Want to Grow Up for the New Voices 24 Hour Plays last year. I'm also a member of The 50', an initiative set up between the Royal Court Theatre and the BBC to celebrate the Court's fiftieth anniversary. In October I will begin an eight week attachment at the National Theatre Studio. Monster is my first full-length play.

I decided to try to be a writer in my final year of university. Before I began my course in film and theatre I hadn't seen many new plays. My parents used to take me to the RSC, and by the time I went to university I had seen every Shakespeare play at least once, as well as a few by Webster, Ibsen and Chekhov. The only new plays I had seen I had managed to catch on tour or on the rare occasion when I would hitchhike down to London, including Trainspotting, Shopping and Fucking and Blasted, all of which made an impact on me.

The year before university I met Arthur Miller who was giving a lecture at Oxford. The hall was packed out and they ended up sitting people on the floor of the stage. I sat at his feet as he read from his biography, then spent a while talking to him afterwards. During my course I discovered Martin Crimp, Caryl Churchill, Sam Shephard, Peter Gill, Robert Holman, Edward Bond, and Pinter as well as Beckett, Brecht, lonesco, Handke and Muller. I read everything, and started travelling to London to see plays at the Court, the Bush and the National. After my degree I did an MA in Playwriting at Central, then an M.Phil in Playwriting at Birmingham University under the tutelage of April De Angelis, Sarah Woods, David Edgar, Stephen Jeffreys and Howard Brenton.

I didn't write anything, however, until I moved to London and embarked on the Royal Court Young Writers Programme, run by Simon Stephens. I wrote two short plays over one weekend. One was produced at Theatre 503/The Latchmere, and the other, From Here to the Moon, was given a workshop and rehearsed reading in the Theatre Upstairs as the 'Play of the Season'. After the New Voices 24 Hour Plays I wrote Satellite and Monster. Monster was written for my parents, both of whom are teachers. Last week my mother retired having run a learning support department for twenty one years. I worked briefly as a support teacher in her department and have also taught outreach workshops for Reading University and the Royal Court, and tutored MA students at Central. Last year I founded the writers collective 'The Apathists', who produce short experimental plays on the first Monday of every month at Theatre 503.