This month we filmed readings of our Woven Voices Prize runners up, bringing incredible teams of actors and directors together at Camden People’s Theatre to support our three exceptional Playwrights. Across one and a half days we were transported from roast duck shops in China to photography studios in London and historic homes in the Black Forest. Watching these plays that are so different in tone and form come to life has been such a brilliant start to 2026 for the Gate and Woven Voices teams.
The first-place runner up J Min Wang’s play ‘When She Is Air’ beautifully explores home, memory, aging and autonomy and asks how we honour the elders in our lives. The play is set in Magnolia House, a bustling old apartment building that houses a community of rambunctious old women, which is soon to be acquired by a developer. Campaigning to prevent the development is 84-year-old Fifth Floor an auntie petitioning everyone in the building with duck, her wary adopted daughter Lia trailing behind her. The centre of this play is a beautiful late-life mother daughter relationship, filled with deep anticipatory grief of seeing the powerful women of the last generation fade away. Under Mingyu Lin’s careful direction, and with the generosity of our performers who fell into these characters effortlessly this play’s tender heart had our team in tears.
Our two Judges commended scripts were also awarded the opportunity to have their work filmed. The first was Soria Hamidi’s ‘A Burst of Light’ which was directed by Adam Karim. The form of this play was so different in feel, shifting powerfully between reality and a dream space. Through the main characters inner journey with grief and finding her creative voice the show starkly confronts the images we have of women in the middle east and who steers the narratives they tell.
The final piece we recorded was ‘All the Beasts of the Earth’ by Christopher Adams-Cohen, which has its roots in both Jewish and Germanic folklore. Two characters navigate their modern Jewish American identities while trapped in a remote house in the black forest owned by two enigmatic sisters. As someone who loves horror on stage for me this play is a perfect blend of familial drama, social commentary and magic realism. Sophia Golan directed the reading in a way that, despite the stripped back nature of the recording cleverly conveyed the uncanniness of the world Christopher has written.
This award creates a vital pathway for migrant artists in the UK to have their work read, shared and developed, and celebrating the vital contribution these writers make to a global, multicultural Britain. As we face growing challenges to arts funding and companies like the Gate can make fewer full productions in a year these readings were a chance to be a part of developing the profile of these writers, and hopefully the future life of these amazing plays.
We are now building up to a week of research and development for the winning play ‘In the Remains’ by Jose Socrates Delos Reyes, which will be directed by Anthony Lau and supported by an immensely talented cast of Filipino performers. An epic and deeply human drama exploring the aftermath of the 2017 Siege of Marawi in the Philippines. Through the intertwined stories of militants, soldiers, and refugees — all victims, all yearning for home — In the Remains asks what survival looks like when both a city and its people must rebuild from destruction. This play is so ambitious in scope, and we cannot wait to explore the rich and complex history that Jose Socrates has captured through his play. Watch this space!
