Youth versus experience in playwriting

On The Guardian Theatre Blog, Lyn Gardner argues that theatres shouldn't prioritise giving young playwrights opportunities over helping experienced playwrights develop a career.

...it has probably never been a better time for emerging writers to have their talent spotted. Such is the proliferation of new writing schemes, hungry like monsters, that need to be fed with ever younger talent to justify their own existence. But what happens after that first play, when the interest is not so acute? How is a career sustained for the long haul – particularly when so few new plays get a further life on UK stages?

That's something that the Guild has been lobbying about and it has been identified as an issue in the new Arts Council Theatre Assessment (more on which to come here soon).