It has been busy

It’s been a busy couple of months. May was a weird mix of a month, it was a bit crazy it started off celebrating my 18^th birthday in lockdown. I filled out my school leavers form so I am officially done with school. I was nominated for the egg, sugar and shot challenge in support of the NHS and key workers. I was confused for a 12-year-old when getting petrol, the woman serving me asked to see my driver’s license! She thought I was there to buy juice, not to fill my car and I was left standing whilst she questioned whose car was outside!  

Lockdown restrictions began to lift and I finally got to see my friend for the first time in person since March 20^th.  We ordered a Chinese and sat in her garden picnic style - two metres apart of course but it was nice to see another person who I do not share a house with. She even attempted the egg, sugar and shot challenge but it resulted in Chaeli having egg yolks everywhere and us both cry laughing, very much on brand for us seeing as when are together one of us ends up crying from laughter. 

As theatres are closed a lot of performers have been holding workshops, Q&A’s as well as a lot of Instagram lives. I spent 24 hours watching a musicalathon on Aimie Atkinson’s Instagram with Tom Gribby which was an experience. 24 hours of singing and dancing from musicals that I am obsessed with, 3am was rough though but maybe that’s because I had been singing from 6pm. Each hour was a different musical soundtrack. Once it reached around 5am they ended up inviting guests on from Broadway shows and then it got to both of them going crazy for Disney hour with a lobster, viewers named Sid.  

Once a week the playwrights have met on zoom to talk about our week and what we have seen. I have recently watched some monologues performed by some Broadway actors like Alex Brightman. The monologue was set in the present and was about how people are trying to get back into contact during this pandemic, but he finds it difficult to send a message so instead films how he feels. He comes to the conclusion that he does not think that they will survive the pandemic and decides to tell this woman his feelings for her and says his goodbyes before the end he assumes is coming. I liked the nervous energy he was able to portray from his side of the screen as well as the emotions he displayed as he talked about how he ended up where he is now.

I have spent most of this month working and developing my first monologue with the help of Nigel Ashworth through emails and zoom meetings. I had to create at least one draft a week with the help, advice and notes given to me from Nigel as well as what I thought needed to be more dramatic. Nigel was extremely helpful and would listen to why I made the choices I did before going on to reread my work before offering his opinion. Nigel would never tell me what I had to write or what had to be changed instead he asked questions which provoked new ideas and allowed me to learn more about the character I’ve created and the story of why they are who they are. It also allowed me to gain experience working with a reader and has helped me get used to receiving feedback on my work.

We’ve had an amazing workshop with Douglas Maxwell who opened his workshop with “Don’t worry about theatre – it’ll survive.  It survived the plague and the puritans, and it survived centuries of war and revolution and it survived cinema, rock n roll and TV.” He also went on to talk us through the basics of playwrighting. He told us that there are no real rules to write a play but instead that we should listen to what the play itself is saying. He also said that we had to be loyal to our plays and listen to what the play tells us about ourselves and the play itself. During the workshop we looked at a few pictures and as a group on zoom we came up with names, the type of person they are and reasons why they could be in the picture. Using the picture as a stimulus to create a rough idea of what characters are like and why they are where they are was interesting as we all had our own ideas. When it comes to my final play I am going to use Pinterest to help plan out my idea because I think using a picture to help develop my idea will improve it because I’ll be able to refer to it and keep making up more information about characters and their backgrounds.  

Rachel Anderson

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