EVENT ARCHIVES

Writing for Theatre

with Rebecca Prichard

This workshop took place on Saturday 15 - Sunday 16 October 2005 in the Playroom Studio, Lancaster University

Please click here for examples of participants' writing and film footage from the workshop

Rebecca Prichard's first play Essex Girls was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1994, as part of the Royal Court Young Writers Festival. The script was later published in Coming on Strong: New Writing from the Royal Court Theatre (1995). Fair Game , a free adaptation of Games in the Backyard by Israeli writer Edna Mazya, was commissioned by the Royal Court and first performed there in 1997.

Yard Gal , which won the Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright, was first performed at the Royal Court in 1998, and was co-produced with Clean Break, a theatre company specialising in work with ex-offenders. Rebecca has also written plays for BBC Radio 4 and is under commission to the Royal Court Theatre, Out of Joint and the Bush Theatre, London.

Are people so used to hearing the meaning and content of language that they forget its sensual power? The sensual quality of language often intimately reflects states of feeling. The use of pauses, repetition, the imagery in slang, and the tics people accumulate as efforts to both defend against and submit to feeling (sometimes at an individual level, sometimes at a cultural level) - are all intimate expressions of character and environment and therefore powerful tools for any dramatist.

During this two day workshop participants explored the boundaries of theatrical language;how theatrical language differs from ordinary language; and considered language as an expression of character, and 'the world' of a play. The workshop also touched on debates concerning the limitations of language; when is a play not a play but a poem, a novel? How does the poetic impulse of a writer sit with their impulse to dramatise and to explore life and character through structure and form? Can the 'artist's voice' overpower their characters' voice, and how, as artists, can we reconcile the (sometimes) conflicting demands of narrative, character exploration, and self expression? Does an awareness of our sensual response to the stage (simply: what the audience will see, what they will hear) bridge the gap between what we want and need to say to an audience, and the discpline of play-structure,  with our responsibility to the 'truth' of the world, and the characters in the play we are developing?

"Looking at the Prichard and Radio Play workshops, I think its interesting that in both there were exercises which focused on establishing power relations and on how a character changes. During both workshops there were moments where we felt uncomfortable in certain unfamiliar power roles and when we discussed how fundamental change can be. In the Prichard workshop, I found coming up with ways that a character avoids discussing their inner thoughts to be particularly useful. It was also interesting to do the exercises that she had developed while working in prisons. I appreciated how much we were up on our feet (such as in the emotional sculpture exercises), which kept me from getting stuck. At the end, I realized how much we had come as a group when we all stood in a circle and contributed different points of views on a really intriguing character that we had collectively developed. Prichard led a very inspiring workshop which really encouraged me to share my writing."

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