Fame at last...

I was planning to write one of my usual fabled posts about the writing life but have been side-swiped to find in my inbox an invitation from a theatre company to submit 10 pages and a treatment for a play for their autumn season on the strength of a piece I previously sent them.

There’s no certainty that they’ll produce anything but I’m in the mix and they must have liked what they’ve seen so far. Naturally I am very excited to be given this opportunity. Just have to write something decent now.

The play will need to be 'inspired by' a vintage photograph which will be assigned to me at a launch event, after which I'll need to submit the first ten pages and the treatment. All submissions will be read by a pool of actors at a public event held over three days - eight scripts will then be selected to be further developed into hour long pieces - five of which will then get a full production, the remaining three a rehearsed reading during the course of the season. The timescales are pretty aggressive so looks like that’s where my focus will be for the immediate future - other projects will just have to take a back seat.

I’ll post about my progress and any lessons learned along the way. In the meantime, if anybody can recommend any great books on playwrighting, or any tips or words of encouragement, I’ll be delighted to hear them.

And if it goes well, I’ll see you all on opening night, and if it doesn’t, I’ll see you all in the bar.

Comments

  1. That's fantastic news, congrats James!

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  2. Congratulations, James! Wonderful news. Looking forward to seeing the photo you're assigned and to hearing about your adventure. : )

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  3. Congratulations James. This is exciting!
    Since you asked, I thought I'd share a link to Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot's columns about screenwriting.

    They must know something because they authored Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a host of other films. Maybe it will help. It was awesome reading at the time I stumbled across this.

    Good luck!

    http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/welcome.html

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  4. Try this link for starters. Their site is a little hard to navigate.

    http://www.wordplayer.com/welcome.html

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  5. And so it begins!!! (or at least that's what I'm hoping for you)

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  6. @Rahma - great links, Rahma - thank you so much

    @Becca - me too, Bec, me too...

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  7. Sorry - behind on blog reading due to my own head being down. It sounds a great project, James - well done! I learn much more from reading plays than books about writing them - happy to recommend some plays, if that would be helpful? Or maybe you've already written it by now!
    Cheers
    Peggy

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