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Writers

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Writers who want to be part of National Theatre Wales, share ideas, get feedback from each other, and hear about opportunities

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Latest Activity: Jan 30, 2023

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Looking for Welsh Playwrights for Scratch Night in London.

Started by CHIPPY LANE PRODUCTIONS LTD. Aug 7, 2016.

Collaborators Needed! 2 Replies

Started by Camille Naylor. Last reply by sean donovan Dec 1, 2015.

Looking for a writer to collaborate on an idea. 2 Replies

Started by Caley Powell. Last reply by Catrin Fflur Huws Mar 3, 2015.

NTW Dramaturgy Project - Beginnings

Started by Richard Hurford Oct 20, 2014.

ONiiiT: The Power of Words

Started by Sophie Chei Hickson Aug 21, 2014.

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Comment by Greg Cullen on July 28, 2013 at 9:36

Shock n Awe Performance Co Present Fallen Written and Directed by Greg Cullen Choreographed by Jem Treays Music by Jak Poore Visuals by John Collingswood of Taikabox Cast: Jams Thomas, Joanna Simpkins, Francois Pandolfo, Ceri Lloyd and Gerald Tyler. One Friday night an exotic, beautiful man falls from the sky, washing up in the river by a seemingly cursed Welsh farm. So begins this darkly comic new play from the multi award-winning writer of “Muscle”. When the degenerate farmer and his three adult children discover the corpse the web of guilt and history, which has bound them together, begins to unravel. As they each fall in love with this angelic stranger they wonder where he could have fallen from and why a sinister man in a green Barbour coat is so desperate to find him? Chapter Arts Centre, Market rd, Canton, Cardiff CF5 1QE Heol y farchnad, Treganna, Caerdydd CF5 1QE Box Office/Swyddfa: +44(0)29 2030 4400 Dates Wednesday July 31st to Saturday Aug 3rd 8pm Matinee Friday 2nd 2.30pm Tickets £8/£10/£12 Please be advised that this show contains some strong language and sexual content www.shocknawe.org.uk www.chapter.org

Comment by meredydd barker on July 23, 2013 at 22:13
Yes, thanks. Mx
Comment by Simon Coates on July 23, 2013 at 22:08

Thanks Alan, And Peter for these suggestions. Really helpful.

Comment by Peter Cox MBE on July 23, 2013 at 21:21

Hi Simon and Med

A young actor colleague of mine, Katie Brennan, is a regular blogger and she recently wrote a fun but helpful Survival Guide to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Check it out here..

http://bloodyhellbrennan.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/edinburgh-fringe-...

Comment by meredydd barker on July 23, 2013 at 8:14
This is great to read, Alan. I myself, and Narberth Youth Theatre, have festival ambitions and these sound like extremely sound points to base future plans on. Hope everything goes well for the rest of the trip. Med.
Comment by Alan Harris on July 23, 2013 at 5:17

Hi Simon, I'd love to - although I can't get it down to 5 tips, so here's my top 9 tips...

1. If you can, tech the show before you get to the festival. We were lucky enough to tech our piece in the Studio at the Sherman before we came to DC. The shape etc of the Studio was very different to the space here but it saved a lot of time and effort during our short tech slot. We, of course, had to adjust a few lighting states but having the cue book already in place was a great help.

2. Make sure that one person on your team is responsible for marketing. They have to have a wide skills base, from flyering to being on it with Twitter, Facebook and other social media skills. This can free you up to concentrate on the creative side of things.

3. Use local talent if possible. Our stage manager and ASM were both from the DC area and it was great to have their local knowledge and contacts.

4. Try and get rid/sell as many tickets for early shows as possible. Word of mouth is everything when it comes to festivals.

5. Be visible - go to the bar/s, talk to the audience and other artists and pick their brains about how they got a show to the festival. Learning from other artists is particularly helpful; how they work, how they create work. 

6. Get the best accommodation you can afford. It's less stressful in the long run.

7. Try to get at least some non "festival time" where you can switch your mind away from all the little problems that crop up. It's good to recharge the batteries if you have a long run.

8. Be open to opportunities available, media calls etc, even if it feels like a bit of a slog. You never know where things lead.

9. Believe in your work and your reason for being at the festival - this positivity is appealing to audiences and all the interesting people you may meet along the way.

Comment by Simon Coates on July 21, 2013 at 23:40

Hi Alan - I wonder if you could share your top five tips for 'being in a fringe festival?

There's a whole bunch of people as you know heading up to Edinburgh who i'm sure would find it useful,some for a repeat visit, some for the first time....there's a group here.

Comment by Alan Harris on July 19, 2013 at 10:39

I'm writing to you from the Capital Fringe Festival, Washington DC. It's been an eventful week here at the Capital Fringe; mounting a new production, interviews, workshops and seeing plenty of shows. The beauty of this festival is the eclectic mix of performers and shows - I've seen a one man performance from a local binman to a 25-strong Gospel rendition of the Nativity with leather-bound Satans. Somewhere in the middle of this is the play I've brought over, Marsha. It's a one-woman show, co-directed and performed by Julia Thomas, and we're half way through the run.
One of the reasons to bring new writing to the festival was to see how work is received by a foreign audience - the play is set firmly in a Welsh village and yet, as a playwright, one of my aims is to work with universal themes and see how they translate to an unfamiliar audience.
We have a local stage manager, Zoia Wiseman (who has worked at the Capital Fringe in the past) and ASM Colin Manning (a recent theatre graduate) and for the show we were allocated a space - The Fort Fringe Bedroom - and a venue manager. The festival contains around 130 shows and is run along the lines of the Edinburgh Fringe but with some well thought out differences.
Looking back at our journey here I feel it's been an opportunity work in an uncensored way and the creativity of the piece is the most important thing - our rehearsal process was supported by Sherman Cymru and Arts Council Wales and Wales Arts International helped us get here. It's been obvious that the American artists don't have the same level of support from funding bodies and organisations - myself and Julia attended a workshop of artists and audience members where we discussed the various models of making original work and also trying to get that work staged.
One of the most fruitful parts of this experience has been the discussions with other companies who have brought work to the festival - local companies such as Dog and Pony and the aforementioned Gospel group who have managed to come up from Georgia with 25 performers and a five-piece band.
People here are interested to find out what is going on in Wales theatre-wise and it's been great to share that with theatre-makers in DC. I did a radio interview with the festival's boss Julianne Brienza and local performers Ron Lipman and Margaux Delotte-Bennett - it was a phone in which was excellent fun and also, today, I'm going for a meeting with the literary manager of the Studio theatre, one of a handful of new writing companies in DC, to learn a bit more about their organisation and see how they develop new writing.
The show itself has gone down well:
http://www.dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2013/07/13/capital-fringe-review-...
and it's been a good feature of the festival that it has a centre - a bar where you can meet other artists and chat with audience members about the work.
Taking part in the Capital Fringe has also been a lesson in how to package up a small show and deliver it in a unfamiliar space - we teched show at the studio space at Sherman Cymru (with sound designer Tom Elstob and lighting designer Isobel Howe) before we left and then sent a prompt script to stage manager Zoia before arrival. Even though the shape of the two spaces (the Sherman studio and the venue here in DC) are very different it made our two-hour tech slot in the space much smoother than it might have been.
Right, off to another show. It's called How To Be A Terrorist which should be fun.
Alan

Comment by Simon Coates on July 18, 2013 at 22:41

HI Jonah

We don't accept unsolicited scripts but we are very happy for people to send us something to have a read through - we say up to 20 pages usually.

Its unlikely to result in that work being produced by us but could may lead to something else in the future...

Comment by meredydd barker on July 18, 2013 at 12:45
The one you form would be.
 

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