ABOUT EMERGING WRITERS TABLE
We are looking for six writers to join our 2025 Emerging Writers Table and create a full-length play for performers aged 18-25.
Emerging Writers Table provides an opportunity to reflect, learn, hear feedback from peers and gain deeper understanding of the playwriting craft and creative process.
This programme offers six emerging playwrights a guided process across seven curated writing sessions from February to November 2025.
During the year, your work will be workshopped and performed by our Youth Company. They’re a talented group of young actors who’ve auditioned to join the company. They hold demanding work with skill, responsibility and rigour.
By the end of the year, you will create a full-length play for performers aged 18-25.
"“Anincredibleyearfullofencouragementandlearningwithmanaakitangaand explorationatthecentre.Iwouldtotallyrecommendtoanyindividualwhoiswantingto exploreanddigdeeperintheirplaywriting,itwilltakeyourcrafttothenextlevel!”
Becky Button, Emerging Writers Table Participant 2024
WHAT IS EMERGING WRITERS TABLE?
We meet together, have lunch, then sit around a table.
Writers Tables are an opportunity to share in the creative process alongside your peers. You’ll share your progress, ask for feedback, listen to what’s working and learn from one another's talents to inform your own.
There will also be guest sessions with leading industry professionals, as well as regular guided discussions with Tāmaki Makaurau based dramaturg Dan Goodwin.
Cost: Absolutely free.
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PROGRAMME OUTLINE
Date
Emerging Writers Table
Saturday, 7 March 2026 YA Orientation
Sunday, 8 March 2026 YA Orientation
Saturday, 11 April 2026 EWT Y1 #2
Saturday, 9 May 2026 EWT Y1 #3
Saturday, 6 June 2026 EWT Y1 #4
Saturday, 4 July 2026 EWT Y1 #5
Saturday, 1 August 2026 EWT Y1 #6 - Deadline for Excerpts
Saturday, 19 September 2026 EWT Y1 #7
Saturday, 17 October 2026 EWT Y1 #8
Saturday, 21 November 2026 Y1 Excerpt Showing
We ask that you are available for all the dates. Our contact time across the 10 months is precious and limited. We set a high bar for our writers, and the research, writing, and editing process is expected to continue consistently between sessions.
Emerging Writers Table is based at Auckland Theatre Company's Rehearsal Rooms in Mt Eden, and in 2025 we can offer places to Auckland-based writers only.
Our sessions together are vital to make sure we can come together, awhi one another in our craft, as artists and people, and make sure everyone crosses the finish line with a work they feel proud of.
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Programme Coordinator, Emerging Writers Table
Dan Goodwin
Born in Fìobha, Alba, Dan Goodwin is a Scottish-Pākeha performance poet, writer, and theatre-maker currently living in Tāmaki-Makau-Rau.
In 2016, they completed their Masters of Text and Performance at Birkbeck, University of London, and RADA, before returning to Aotearoa. Their work fuses prose poetry and theatre, with a focus on queer identity, relationships, and mental health Lived Experience. They currently lead the Emerging Writers Table for ATC Youth Company.
They are the 2021 New Zealand National and Auckland Regional Slam Champion and have performed poetry across spaces such as RE: news, TVNZ, Auckland Pride Gala, Cabaret Festival, London’s Bloomsbury festival, NZ Young Writers Festival, and the Auckland Writers Festival.
In 2023, they completed their final year of study to become an NZSL interpreter, and now also work as the community support manager for the Lived Experience NGO Changing Minds.
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WHO ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
What we’re looking for is passion, exciting ideas, and a desire to delve into playwriting over a durational, in-depth process. Ideally you aren’t new to playwriting, and your craft is informed by having read a good number of plays and written some yourself.
After the calibre of the 2024 & 2025 applicants we know that the Emerging Writers Table is a good fit for folks writing their third or fourth play, who already have a baseline technical knowledge.
If you’re new to playwriting, tell us why the art form excites you. If you’ve ventured into writing before but gotten scared off, let us know what’s pulling you back in.
More than anything we want to support emerging artists who are excited about the craft. We don’t want to let anything get in the way of your enthusiasm or potential, and at the end of the day - the work is everything. If you can show us you’re excited to write a play, and have a great writing sample, then we’re excited to hear from you!
While this is an EmergingWritersTable,please note you can be an emerging writer at any age, and there is no age limit.
Emerging Writers Table is based at Auckland Theatre Company's Rehearsal Rooms in Mt Eden, and in 2025 we can offer places to Auckland-based writers only.
WHAT WILL I WRITE ON THE EMERGING WRITERS TABLE?
You will write a full-length play for performers aged 16-25.
As part of the application process, you'll tell us about the idea you'd like to write.
The synopsis you include in your application should clearly demonstrate that the play you want to write is suitable for this age range. This is one of the markers we use when selecting Table members.
However, don’t underestimate the themes and questions that this age range is hungry for! 16-25 covers students from the end of high school all the way to drama school graduates.
Across the year, your work will be workshopped and performed by our Youth Company, and our actors are capable and eager to play mature roles and work with big topics relevant to their present selves and their future. They’re a talented group of young creatives who’ve auditioned to join the company. They can hold demanding work with skill, responsibility and rigour.
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APPLICATION PROCESS:
Applications for the 2026 Emerging Writers Table close at 12pm on Friday 23 January 2026.
As part of the application, you will include:
1. A writing sample of a play text, between 2-3 pages, that you feel best showcases your work
2. A 1-page CV
3. A synopsis of your idea
TIMELINE
Stage Detail Key Dates
Round One Application Form Deadline Closes: 12pm, Friday 23 January 2026
Shortlisted applicants notified by Wednesday 29 January 2026
Round Two Interviews Thursday 12 & Friday 13 February 2026
Round Three Interviews Thursday 26 & Friday 27 February 2026
Announcement
Emerging Writers Table 2026 confirmed Tuesday 3 March 2026
Orientation Orientation Weekend Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 March 2026
(Alldatessubjecttochange;shortlistedapplicantswillbenotifieddirectly.)
Questions along the way? Contact us at youtharts@atc.co.nz
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ABOUT AUCKLAND THEATRE COMPANY
Auckland Theatre Company (ATC) introduced itself to the world in 1993 under the leadership of Simon Prast with the world premiere of David Geary’s Lovelock’s DreamRun , directed by Raymond Hawthorne ONZM at the Watershed Theatre. The company was led by Artistic Director Colin McColl ONZM from mid-2003 to 2021 who created an unprecedented 18 seasons during a highly productive period in which ATC established a permanent rehearsal base at Balmoral and set the scene for a theatre to call home.
In 2016, after a decade of dreaming, planning and fundraising, the company opened the ASB Waterfront Theatre in Wynyard Quarter, creating a new platform where theatre-makers could work at scale.
Now with an annual subscription season of 6-8 works, a thriving Youth Company, digital classroom and education programmes, new work in development, a suite of arts industry partnerships, rehearsal studios on Dominion Road and a 675-seat theatre to call home, ATC looks ahead to the next 30 years ready to embrace the new challenges of creating and presenting theatre for an ever changing audience in the context of Aotearoa’s largest multicultural city.
Our purpose of ’powerful storytelling that connects communities and enriches lives’ is manifested in five programme strands. We:
• Produce theatre of scale and ambition, presenting outstanding New Zealand and international work that thrills audiences and builds community.
• Develop new work by New Zealand theatre artists, reflecting the community of which we are a part and nurturing the next generation of New Zealand storytellers.
• Inspire and engage young people, through initiatives in which young people can participate through school and independently.
• Provide leadership for the performing arts sector, offering professional development and resources that nurture theatre workers.
• Programme ASB Waterfront Theatre to fulfil its potential as a cultural asset for the benefit of Aucklanders.
READY TO APPLY?
Applications close: 12pm, Friday 23 January 2026
Apply now: https://www.atc.co.nz/learn-and-explore/youth-arts/emerging-writerstable
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