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Citizens Theatre awarded prestigious new writing commission

10 Sep 2024

The Citizens Theatre has been selected as one of only five venues across the UK to receive a prestigious writing commission for 2024. The award, part of the Peter Shaffer Commissions, is administered by the National Theatre in collaboration with the Sir Peter Shaffer Charitable Foundation. It supports playwrights in creating large-scale original plays.

We are delighted that our submission to work with writer and director Maryam Hamidi on her new play Charmian and Cleopatra, was one of the commission recipients.

Dominic Hill, Artistic Director of the Citizens Theatre, expressed his excitement about the commission:

I’m thrilled that the Citz will once again be working with Maryam Hamidi on a new play, supported by the National Theatre’s prestigious Peter Shaffer Award. Maryam is a wonderful writer who is able to conjure up big, bold, timeless worlds for the stage. Her new play, inspired by Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, will certainly be that. Based on a classic, but very much about the world we live in today, it will be a brilliant new play for Glasgow and feels very much what our new Citizens Theatre will be all about.

Maryam Hamidi, who previously collaborated with the Citizens Theatre on her 2023 play Moonset, commented:

I’m so grateful to the Sir Peter Shaffer Foundation, the Citz team, and Dominic Hill for the invaluable support to write this play. It’s a gift to have an opportunity to write something playful and political on a large scale and dream of its realisation for the astonishing redevelopment of the theatre. It’s such an exciting time for the Citz, and I’m going to relish being around that energy as I write and envision this play.

Each year, seven commissions are awarded, with two going to plays developed by the National Theatre and five, like the one awarded to the Citizens Theatre, offered through an open call to regional theatres and companies across the UK.

As the Citizens Theatre gets ready to reopen in 2025 following the most comprehensive redevelopment in its history, commissioning of new work and developing new voices is at the heart of our plans for the new building.