FIVE envelopes, five writers, five new one-act plays. Two evenings. One step away from your imagination. Welcome to the York branch of Script Yorkshire’s presentation of The Envelope Project at Friargate Theatre, York, at 7.15pm tomorrow and Saturday.

The evenings are the result of a group of writers meeting last October to begin a different kind of writing project, as the York branch’’s co-ordinator, Rebecca Thomson, explains.

“The Envelope Project was designed to encourage these writers to take a step away from their own imagination by developing new one-act plays from anonymous material that they would provide and exchange with other members asa stimulus.

"A picture, a place, a line of dialogue, a piece of music, a random object; these were the items that each writer found in the envelope they took away from that first meeting, and would provide the starting point for the script they would write.”

From that first meeting, the material has been workshopped and scripts have been crafted, read, re-drafted and handed to directors from the community theatre scene.

“The project will culminate in this weekend’s evenings of new writing: a festival celebrating the work that has taken place, allowing it to be seen by an audience for the very first time,” says Rebecca.

She also happens to be among the five featured writers this weekend. Rebecca’s play Never Have I Ever, directed by Jan Kirk, will be joined by Richard Kay’s Good Grief, directed by Ruby Clarke; A Sporting Affair by Alice Mapplebeck, directed by Rochelle Reynolds; Helen Shay’s Stone, directed by Marian Mantovani, and S.O.S. by Tom Straszewski, directed by Joe Steele.

Tickets for tomorrow or Saturday cost £8 on 01904 613000 or at ridinglights.org