One award leads to another for young playwright  

Young playwright Milly Sweeney, whose play Water Colour was commissioned as part of the 2024/25 St Andrews Playwriting Award, has been selected as Best Writer in The Stage Debut Awards 2025. 

Milly was the only Scot nominated in any category at this year’s awards, which celebrate the most exciting emerging talent in UK theatre. 

Water Colour was developed through the St Andrews Playwriting Award – an initiative originated by the University of St Andrews’ Byre Theatre and MLitt in Playwriting and Screenwriting. The ground-breaking award selects, commissions and, working with a professional producing theatre partner, brings a debut play from an unproduced playwright living in Scotland to the stage, providing a launchpad for new voices.   

As a winner of the award Milly developed her work with the support of the professional creative teams from the Byre, Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Playwrights’ Studio Scotland, with mentoring from St Andrews MLitt in Playwriting and Screenwriting lecturer and award-winning playwright Frances Poet, and from theatre and television actor and director Sally Reid.    

Thanks to this opportunity Water Colour received its world premiere at Pitlochry Festival Theatre before transferring to the Byre in spring 2025. 

Water Colour is about connection, mental illness, and opening yourself up to the world, and was hailed by The Stage as “raw and real and mightily moving”.  

Milly said: “The St Andrews Playwriting Award was a life-changing experience for me and it has led to so many positive things. The opportunity to work alongside and learn from industry professionals such as Julie Ellen and Sally Reid ensured my first foray into the professional theatre industry was a smooth and supported one. The dramaturgical sessions I received with Frances Poet were crucial to both the development of the play and my own professional development as a writer.  

“The St Andrews Playwriting Award also offered me a script development workshop for my next play, where I was able to work with two fabulous actors and a director who helped aid me in my re-drafting of the play. I found this to also be super valuable, as writing your next play after the first was so well-received has proved to be pretty daunting! 

“The award also funded a week-long residency in Cove Park. As a young person who still lives at home, and works in hospitality to fund their creative pursuits, being given the time, space, and privacy to work on my projects was wonderful. I wrote with more drive and focus than I ever have in my life, re-drafting both the play I was developing during the workshop, and an entirely new play I am currently developing with a youth theatre. 

 “I feel very grateful to have received the St Andrews Playwriting Award, and for Water Colour to have been produced. It is a story which explores mental health and loneliness, and it is important that stories like that have a platform.” 

Julie Ellen, Director of the Byre Theatre, said: “This recognition is wonderful news, and a validation of the St Andrews Playwriting Award, the hard work that goes into fundraising, building the partnerships, selecting the writer, developing the play, directing and producing it. Our appreciation goes to all who have helped in bringing this wonderful new work to light from a previously unproduced playwright and to Milly for sharing her award winning play with us.”  

Alan Cumming, Artistic Director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, who received an Honorary Doctorate from the University this summer, said, “Milly Sweeney is a great new Scottish voice and I am proud her first play opened at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Her Stage Debut award is just another example of the promise and great future she has. I hope we will present more of her work in years to come.”   

Milly’s achievement underlines the University’s global leadership in the arts, where research, teaching, and professional practice come together to create opportunities for new talent. A biennial competition, The St Andrews Playwriting Award will next open for applications in autumn 2025.