Theatre503 and Theatre Voice are inviting 53 playwrights to write a short piece inspired by one of the stops on the Piccadilly Line. The plays will be recorded at Theatre503 and then streamed once a week on Theatre Voice. Over twelve months, the collected plays will create a vibrant soundscape of London as told through the voices of some of our most exciting playwrights.
The Piccadilly line passes through the very heart of London, from North East to South West. Each stop on the line is a doorway into a different part of London, and we are interested in how, over the 52 weeks, a picture of London is built up, its many stories, past, present, future, in all its diverse glory from the perspectives of the many people who make this city their home, pass through it, or stop just for a little while.
We want to place as few constraints as possible on each play. It should be inspired by one the stops (and its surroundings), be between 3 and 10 minutes long, and ideally should be performable by up to 3 actors. However, like radio plays, these pieces can be filled with great feats of imagination - if you want thirty elephants wandering down the Holloway Road, you can have them. If you'd like to creep into a gap between the rails on the track before Ickenham station, you can take us there. If you want a crowd of thousands in the middle of Cockfosters, you can put them there. The tube itself, of course, provides many stories, but the plays you write don't have to be about the tube itself.