Last Friday I went to a celebratory lunch at the Royal Court held by the theatre panel of the Writers’ Guild to give its members the opportunity to publicly thank those who had given them a particularly positive experience in new writing over the previous year, with the presentation of the annual Writers’ Guild Theatre Encouragement Awards.
Six awards were made, with the diverse recipients including Elizabeth Newman, who looks after new writing at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre where she runs an ‘incubate’ workshop for a group of experienced writers as well as a new young people’s writing group and Paul Milton of the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham who runs the Writers’ Lab there to support new writing.
Those are both, of course, established theatres, and it’s great to see them offering a frontline commitment, on increasingly beleaguered resources, to finding and developing new writers, instead of relying on an endless diet of Ayckbourn, Godber or Shakespeare to fill their repertoire.
There were also awards for a couple of organisations and people that are more behind-the-scenes: one went to the charity Dyslexia Scotland, who helped one young writer Lowri Potts to stage her first play as part of UK Dyslexia Week; and another to David James, who runs the Arts Council sponsored Book, Music and Lyrics Musical Theatre Workshop, a unique course which teaches the craft of writing musicals. As Theresa Howard, a member of the BML workshop who nominated David for the award, said, “I am no longer working in a vacuum, I now feel part of a community. Members have formed strong bonds, and in this place of trust, new work is being created and honed.”
But I was more intrigued, too, by two awards to theatre companies I’d never heard of. One was an amateur theatre group Network Theatre, which commits itself to staging one new play amongst its repertoire of five productions every year in premises hidden under Waterloo station, which as their own website proclaims, “is rumoured to be difficult to find, so check out our directions before your first visit.”
Actually, I’ve seen signs for it in Waterloo station, but until it got this award, it had never really registered; I’ve assumed it was some kind of railway workers’ social club. They bill themselves as “better than fringe”, but unlike large chunks of the fringe, are at least openly transparent about their working practices: they run it “on the amateur model, but we aim to work to professional standards in our productions and our venue (‘fringe’ or better). You need to be a member to participate, and everything is done by volunteers (we have no paid staff), managed by a volunteer committee.”
Nominated by playwright Susan Hodgetts, who graduated in January 2011 with a Masters in Writing for Performance from Goldsmith’s, she commented, “Competition is extremely tough out there for new writers, particularly those who are mature students, which I was. Network Theatre have not only given me the opportunity to put on my first full-length play this September, but every year they have a new writing slot programmed in amongst their works of classic productions. Labelled as an ‘am dram’ theatre, this theatre is often overlooked for the fantastic work that it does with new writers and the opportunities that it provides for them…. I credit them with keeping my motivation afloat at the end of my Masters, and giving me the chance to continue learning, as a writer eventually needs to, by performance.”
Whilst the postbags of the literary departments of places like the National, Royal Court, Bush and Hampstead are heaving with unsolicited plays, it is interesting to hear of another outlet for them. But it was also interesting to find out about the final winner Theatre Centre, a touring company that commissions and tours new writing to schools. It has been in existence since 1953, pioneering the development of theatre for children and young people; and yet somehow I had never heard of them until last Friday. Yet looking at their website I noticed that over the years they’ve presented plays by David Holman, Bryony Lavery, Nona Sheppard, Noel Greig, Adjoa Andoh, Philip Osment, Diane Samuels, Benjamin Zephaniah, Leo Butler, Roy Williams and more.
So why have I never heard of them until now? Obviously, I don’t get invited to see their shows at schools; but from time to time they do runs in London venues, too, like the Unicorn, and scanning my e-mail for invites, I found one from a PR that said: “I am not sure if this is your cup of tea but my next press night is for Rigged by Ashmeed Sohoye for Theatre Centre.”
Apart from the interesting fact of the PR second-guessing my taste, it turns out that that particular opening clashed with an opening at the Donmar Warehouse; but after hearing about their work last week, I will definitely try to see them in the future.
Mind you, some PR operations for even the biggest of shows seem to be behind the curve. On Monday, a story appeared on the US website deadline.com saying that Zach Braff was bringing his off-Broadway play All New People to the West End - and starring in it this time himself, too. The story even gave a theatre - the Duke of York’s - and a start date: February 22.
Of course, Backbeat is currently running there, and was booking to the end of March. On Tuesday, All New People launched a website - and the box office was opened. But Backbeat was also still booking to the end of March. Surely some mistake?
Nor did I get a press release until I chased for one, even though there was one (without a media contact) posted on the production website. It was not until yesterday, meanwhile, that Backbeat officially confirmed their early closing for February 18. Of course, a play with Zach Braff may have its own PR value built in - but it seems peculiar to make journalists chase down your press release, instead of making sure that they received it en masse.
A second, and most deserved 'Well Done' to David James, whose infectious enthusiasm has proved inspirational to so many of us over the past couple of years. on the Book, Music, and Lyrics group.