Will Mortimer Email & Phone Number

London, England, United Kingdom

As Head of Development I have oversight of the new plays being commissioned and developed for the Bridge Theatre. The 900 seat, commercial venue situated by Tower Bridge was opened in 2018 and presents a programme of predominantly new plays. I act as dramaturg prior and during rehearsals on produced plays and develop ideas and new material for future productions with writers. I commission writers, find material for adaptation and closely develop scripts with writers. I am part of the core programming team with a focus on the new play strand of the theatre. In this role I have worked with industry leading writers on new plays including Lucinda Coxon, Stephen Beresford, Mark Gatiss, Richard Bean, Nancy Harris and Nina Raine amongst others.

London, England, United Kingdom

Prior to the Bridge Theatre opening I worked as a consultant to provide ideas for potential writer commissions. I was able to develop ideas through to commission stage, found material for adaptation that was subsequently secured for commission, developed scripts intended for production and contributed to future production plans.

London, England, United Kingdom

Film4 and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation support bursaries for six theatres and playwrights each year, allowing a theatre to commission a writer and attach them to their theatre for twelve months. As a panellist and judge for the award, chaired by Sir Richard Eyre, I read all submissions from theatres and the accompanying scripts from their playwrights and shortlist and interview the theatres and writers, awarding the six chosen theatres a bursary to support their playwrights for a year. The award begain in 1973, originally supported by Thames Television.

London, England, United Kingdom

I work alongside my fellow trustees at The Peggy Ramsay Foundation to consider applications from playwrights for individual funding grants. We meet quarterly to distribute money from the trust set up in Peggy Ramsay's name.

In my time at Hampstead Theatre I worked on around one hundred plays, the majority of which were world premieres. I ran the literary department, reading and responding to play submissions from playwrights and agents, commissioning and licencing writers and plays for the main house space and studio theatre (Hampstead Downstairs). A primary focus was on programming and developing scripts that were presented in Hampstead Downstairs, finding emerging writers and working to develop their plays further. In addition I would work to assemble creative teams for Hampstead Downstairs, developing relationships with directors and designers, and contract creative teams across the two spaces. I developed long standing relationships with many writers from this role and have continued to work with them in my current position.

London, England, United Kingdom

Reading and writing reports of scripts, novels and factual material for Tiger Aspect as submitted by writers and agents. This included writing a detailed breakdown of the content of the material along with comments and analysis as to whether it was appropriate for adaptation and development for the television drama department at Tiger Aspect.