As anyone who’s ever bumped into the hidden corners of a theatre’s website can tell you, having a brand new play to unleash on the unsuspecting literary department can land you in a labyrinth. Many venues ask everyone to restrain from cold calling; those who offer a piece of their inbox to this will still warn not to expect anything soon or much. HighTide Festival Theatre does the exact opposite - they only accept unsolicited scripts, and receive around a thousand each year. While some will end up being produced at the annual festival, many more are offered development opportunities. This devotion to finding hidden gems amongst the undiscovered, combined with the focus British theatre places on text, means HighTide is perfectly positioned to nudge the industry in new directions.

Steven Atkinson co-founded HighTide in 2007 and has been its Artistic Director ever since, seeing it rise to a National Portfolio organisation. With another edition of the festival coming up in May we talk to him about taking risks and the position of new writing in amidst the funding cuts.

Run-Riot: What do you look out for when you pick up a script by someone you might have never heard of?  

Steven Atkinson: Within three pages I know whether I will read on. In the first instance you're looking for dialogue that is speakable and dramatic. If I read the whole play, then I question whether the play is successful on its own terms. And I think 'why today' when I consider programming. 

Run-Riot: What are the benefits of accepting unsolicited scripts? How difficult do you think it can be for playwrights without a network around them, to get their work read, let alone performed? 

Steven Atkinson: I wish more theatres produced unsolicited scripts. For most theatres, an unsolicited script is a calling card to be invited on to a writers' group, or being commissioned. But sometimes I think writers can be over developed, and the question of producing a new talent overwrought, so in the end chances on new talent aren't taken anywhere enough. The major benefit of what we do at HighTide is that we find talent before anybody else, and in that sense we're on the front-foot of what's new and interesting. 

Run-Riot: HighTide is essentially in the business of taking a chance on new playwrights. Is there enough institutional risk-taking in the industry today?

Steven Atkinson: The state of new writing is in constant flux - and as Fin Kennedy's IN BATTALIONS recently documented, times are tough. There are, however, bright sparks. Paines Plough are doing terrific work touring and developing new audiences for new writing. The Bush are experimenting in form, as well as committing to producing one unsolicited script a year. Manchester Royal Exchange and Live Theatre are making bold commitments to new talent. For me the focus has to be in finding new talent - whether that means working in schools, youth centres, conferences, commitment to low ticket prices etc. In tough times, which these are, we have to redouble efforts to think about nurturing the future of our business. 

Run-Riot: Can you tell us more about the process a play might go through, from being submitted to being produced?

Steven Atkinson: Of the 1000 plays we receive a year, around 100 have further development. We produce twice-monthly play readings in our London offices. We give a week of R&D with myself and actors to ten writers. We have meetings. We produce readings in the HighTide Festival. There's a myriad of things. But for HighTide, what we're looking for is around six plays a year that are urgent and robust enough to be fully produced.

Run-Riot: What are the benefits of being based close enough but still not in London? Does it create a more focused environment for HighTide Festival?

Steven Atkinson: What's unique about a festival is that it brings together hundreds of artists, comprised of playwrights, actors, designers etc. So the festival is a social space in which lots of artists get to meet and connect, and every year there's a clear sense of a peer group coming together, so particularly with the writers, it's almost like each festival is a graduating year group of playwrights, and there's the sense that they will be peer artists for the rest of their careers. Only in a festival, where several works are premiering at the same time, could such a collegiate sense be realised. 

Run-Riot: HighTide doesn’t only focus on UK writing - you also find and produce international plays. How do you decide which part of the world to focus on in your search? What determines where you go? 

Steven Atkinson: We've focused on three continents to date - Australia, America and South Africa, and we've since produced plays from all three. What we're looking for is the best new writing, which we term as being urgent and compelling stories, so we look to international writers as we're interested in what's going on in the world. 

Run-Riot: Do you find the new writing today socially and politically engaging, emerging from the realities of the UK?  Where does political playwriting stand today?

Steven Atkinson: Writing today is very politically aware. The politics are often implicit rather than explicit. But in every drama, a character exists in a context. And as most plays are about recent times or the future, and the times we're living in are so fraught, then it's no surprise that these troubles are having a profound effect on new plays. There's a lot of uncertainty; as institutions and governments are challenged, power isn't as implicit as it once was. So writers are asking 'what's next'. It's a good time for drama. 

Run-Riot: UK theatre is arguably a writer's theatre - as opposed to more directing focused continental practise. Where do you think new writing is pulling theatre at the moment? Is there enough scope and support for experimentation? 

Steven Atkinson: Happily established theatres are currently thinking very collaboratively in terms of co-producing work, which is good for audiences and artists. However, as money is tight, the area that suffers is larger-scale work, whether that be big casts or how work is staged - site-specific being a particular area. I hope that there continues to be innovations in the form of how new writing is staged, which I believe is important to capturing new audiences. I think Vicky Featherstone's appointment to the Royal Court is very promising in this respect.  

Run-Riot: Would you say there’s an element - thematic, formal, or otherwise - that joins up the plays in this year’s festival? Any preoccupations that emerge over and over again?

Steven Atkinson: Narratively the plays are very different this year - that was a conscious choice. But what unites the five plays at the centre of the festival is that they are all very ambitious; they tell big stories, whether emotionally or in lots of content, and they experiment with form, which is exciting. There is nothing pedestrian about any play in this year's festival.

HighTide Festival: 2-21 May

Halesworth, Suffolk

Tickets and info: HighTide