Embark 2026 Scriptwriters. Wheelchair users, 18-30

We're looking for our Embark 2026 Scriptwriters!

We are looking to work with 2 people who are interested in becoming Scriptwriters and who have a great idea for a theatre show.

We will work with the 2 writers across 4 months, to develop their skills and their script, through workshops, residentials and 1:1 mentoring.

Their script will then be given to an emerging Director, who will work with actors to stage it at a work-in-progress sharing, for industry, friends and family.

This will be filmed and photographed, so that the writer has a calling card for their work.

• Key information
• Role: Scriptwriter
• Number of spaces: 2
• Fee:£1,850 per person (We are open to offering other forms of payment e. g. vouchers, or to voluntary participation where required by participants)
• Time commitment: We will work with Scriptwriters between October 2026 - February 2027.
• Location: Zoom / Tramshed Theatre, London
• Eligibility: Wheelchair users aged 18-30
• Who we're looking for

This programme is specifically for wheelchair users who want to have a career in theatre as a scriptwriter.

This includesall wheelchair users, including ambulatory, partially ambulatory, and non-ambulatory wheelchair users, as long as a lack of wheelchair access would prevent them taking part in other programmes.

We are particularly looking for wheelchair users who face specific and additional high barriers to accessing arts and training opportunities, including:

• People who require a hoist or to be manually lifted in order to safely transfer into their wheelchair
• People who require changing places toilets
• People who have 12+ hours a day of care funded through Adult Social Care or NHS Continuing Healthcare to meet their needs
• People who use AAC
• Due to the terms of our funding you must be between 18-30 years old.

You do not need to have written anything before.

We're looking for storytellers, for people who have great ideas and a unique tone, people who are excited to develop their skills as a scriptwriter, who thrive working as a group, and who are looking for a place to begin their career as a scriptwriter.

What the programme involves

The chosen creatives will be paid to develop their skills as a scriptwriter in a programme led by CRIPtic Arts' Artistic Director Jamie Hale, and create a script for a work in progress sharing.

Between October 2026 - February 2027 the programme will involve

• 4 x Online workshops
• 2 x 3-day online R&Ds
• 2 x 1:1 Online Dramaturgy sessions (1 hour each)
• 1 x Online script meeting with a director (half a day)
• 2 x days in rehearsals in person, with hybrid provision available
• We are currently aiming for the session dates to be on the following dates, though there is some flexibility here:
• Workshop 1, Thurs 22 October, 2-4pm
• Workshop 2, Thurs 29 October, 2-4pm
• Workshop 3, Thurs 12 November, 2-4pm
• Workshop 4, Thurs 19 November, 2-4pm
• Writers Residential 1, 8-10 December
• Dramaturgy Session, 14 January, by arrangement
• Writers Residential 2, 26-28 January

You must be available to join the Year 2 Embark Project Board, in 2027-8.

The Project Board will work with CRIPtic Arts to codesign Embark 2027, shaping the programme for the next cohort of writers & directors.

This will involve attending 6 x 2-hour meetings across the year, plus a handover meeting in 2028.

Project Board Members receive a fee of £1,000 for their work with CRIPtic across the year.

What kind of ideas are you interested in?

We want to work with scriptwriters who create pieces that bring something new to the theatre world.

Our aim is to support disabled people to tell big stories, instead of just being asked to serve our trauma up to non-disabled audiences.

We are excited by work that makes space for disabled people to go beyond just telling stories about our lives, diagnoses and struggles, and into the broad, the divergent, the fictional, the historical, the political, and the fantastical - work that deals with big themes, and big questions - whether or not it mentions disability at all.

At CRIPtic, we want to create work that is shaped by the body, by access, by exclusion and by lived experience, but that resists being reduced to any of those.

This means we are much less interested in narratives about encounters with the medical system (often discriminatory or traumatic ones) and experiences of getting a diagnosis, or scripts which discuss what it’s like to have a particular experience (e. g. "being invisibly disabled", "being visibly disabled", "being neurodivergent").

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