A script has been written and now the next phase begins – Mike P and the company begin testing it, trying it, speaking it, moving it…

Persians is unlike other processes I’ve undergone as a writer. When I’ve been perhaps the originator of a text, the first weeks of rehearsals are often all about seeing if it holds up, experimenting, rewriting, making the dramaturgy work. Although there have been some small revisions, with Persians I’m working with a received text – the oldest recorded one in the Western theatrical canon – and I can be relatively confident Aeschylus did something rather brilliant with its structure, given we’re still performing it several thousand years on from his writing it.

But one thing I’ve learned from working so closely with this text is the dangers of arrogance and hubris, so I won’t rest too comfortably…

All the dramaturgical discussions with Mike, the absorption of his approach to the work and my own wrestling with the minutiae of the text in its many manifestations now hopefully will pay off…

Week one rehearsals down and counting….