Winner of the Shelagh Delaney New Writing Award 2024

A rite of passage drama about broken promises, squandered opportunities, innocence versus experience: the love-hate continuum that exists between a father and daughter – where the Past-Present-Future exist in the same time and place.

Teenage Rayla single-handedly props up her emotionally abusive, addicted, highly intelligent father.

On one life-changing day, her world undergoes a seismic shift under the influence of an unexpected apparition – her older self, Ray – where the father and daughter(s) fight for control of his inability to change.

What follows is a charged, brutally honest battle of wits about Hope vs Despair – where the child becomes an adult, and the adult a child.
Rayla Clay (and the following day) tackles complex themes, femxle autonomy, paternal abuse and escape head on.

Drayla Kasheen the writer says; “To see my work produced and performed is, and always has been, vital in terms of confirming a concept and expediting its possibilities: the notion that a script doesn’t exist until it’s seen, shown, done; I agree with this – that the play needs to make that crucial leap from page to stage in order for it to credibly, authentically exist.”

This is our third year running the Shelagh Delaney New Writing Award supporting new writers and giving them a platform to see and hear their work performed.
Previous winner

https://honorarymancblog.com/2025/04/07/rayla-clay-and-the-following-day-salford-arts-theatre/