Starting the Year Strong

I was fortunate enough to be able to be able to visit New York City this month and whilst my friends and I were there we went to see “Mean Girls” on Broadway. 
It’s a musical adaption of the cult classic film of the same name and I was astonished at how much I enjoyed it. 

Something I have observed as a recent young person myself is that the portrayal of teenagers in media is almost always one dimensional- hormonal, grumpy and personality less with a Facebook addiction. It isn’t that being a teenager doesn’t involve a degree of moodiness and a large amount of social media- its just that it is grossly inaccurate to conclude that that’s the essence of a young person. What I really admired about Mean Girls in New York was that it really felt it understood the seriousness of teen anxiety whilst still being able to reassure the young audience that the world is bigger than the politics of high school. The musical was also hilarious and a real highlight of my trip to America. 10/10.  

Something the musical did for me was reiterate the importance of meaningful representation for people to feel that they are valued and listened too. Growing up in a rural area where almost everyone is white, Scottish and seemingly straight it was strange for me to hear debates about whether TV was displaying an accurate representation of Britain. However, as I have grown older and met people from all over the world I have been lucky enough to be enlightened on what representation means to underrepresented minorities. It has given me a drive to be a playwright not just for my own personal development but also as a way of producing a social good. 

The growing seriousness of my desire to be a playwright has led me into looking at ways you can realistically achieve such a goal. Oliver Emanuel’s video series on YouTube has been very helpful for me in terms of educating me on how to treat your creativity like a business model. The truth is I didn’t even really know that you needed to pitch your plays to theatre companies at all, and now I know how to do it. When I graduate I really want to travel for a year and knowing that there is potential finance in writing makes me reassured. Olivers “10 brilliant visual ideas” as a skeleton for a play was something I enjoyed learning about. I will have to use it. I know how I want my play to start and end but I need a structure for the middle. I will use Oliver's tools to help me.

Kate Barr

Kate is part of the Bunbury Banter Young Playwrights Programme 2019-2020