I’ve always loved theatre, my very first job when leaving school being cleaning stage lights at the Sherman Theatre in my hometown of Cardiff…oh the glamour! But I didn’t want to be polishing lenses…I wanted to be putting words into the actors’ mouths. Fast-forward hundreds of years and many careers later and I find myself an actual commissioned scriptwriter. But I still hadn’t written that stage play I’ve so badly wanted to write. Was I secretly terrified that if I did finally write one it might be totally crap? I was researching an idea for a blackly comic radio play. Based on personal experience, it’s something I’d wanted to write forever. As I was developing it
I suddenly realised it might actually work for live performance. It was at this point I discovered Studio Salford’s WriteForTheStage course. Perfect timing. Could this be the push I needed to finally pen that stage play? Scary! Booking onto the course there was no looking back. It was exactly what I needed. Developing my play, now called The Black Eye Club, during the weekly sessions I learnt a huge amount about writing for the stage (the course does exactly what it says on the tin!). Mike, the tutor, has written many stage plays so well and truly knows his stuff. On top of this he’s a great teacher, the sessions being an absolute pleasure to attend. He also offered very generous feedback. Without this honest and constructive criticism, my play would not have ended up the way it did. Having written for tele where scenes are usually brief and you’re constantly changing location, I’d originally intended taking the characters in my stage play here there and bloody everywhere. Mike suggested keeping the story in just one place. Panic attack! Panic attack! I’d never done anything like that before, this being way out of my comfort zone. But Mike’s steer really helped me to focus. I got rid of the numerous locations and kept it in one room. The play just winning a playwriting award, it was the absolute right thing to do. Ta, Mike! THE BLACK EYE CLUB premieres @ The Bread & Roses Theatre , Clapham 1st – 18th Nov 2017
THE BLACK EYE CLUB was developed through WriteForTheStage Intro and Advanced . The new term starts in October.
