With the launch of the brand-new Mainstage Prize, a £10,000 award championing ambitious large-scale theatre, I sat down with founder Sophie Cairns and chairperson Pippa Hill to discuss the future of new writing, the urgent need for commercially ambitious theatre, and why horror has been chosen as the Prize’s inaugural genre. Backed by Riverside Studios, the Mainstage Prize aims to discover bold theatrical voices capable of captivating large audiences, and terrifying them too.