Young Playwright Interviews: Rachel Anderson

In the second of our interviews of the participants on this year’s Young Playwrights Programme, we interviewed Rachel Anderson.

Why did you decide to join the Young Playwrights Programme?

I hadn’t done anything like it before and I was getting ready to send my UCAS application off and decided to apply as a way to try and make my application stand out. I wanted to try and gain some more experience and I wanted to learn more about the developmental stages of script writing. It’s something I hadn’t done before as I’m usually on the other side acting out the script so I decided I wanted to get a better understanding and a greater appreciation of what goes on behind the scenes before we get the final copy. I also really wanted to have the chance to work with some amazing playwrights who had so many different strategies to creating characters, plots and a lot more. Everything I have learned I can use for my university course so I feel better prepared than I would have otherwise been.

 

How did you feel about sharing your work with other people when you began the programme? How has that changed?

I’m not really someone who likes to share my work with people because I get a bit stressed out that I’ve done the complete opposite of what we’ve been asked to do. At first I was really hesitant to share my work and would refuse to share first. That way I could listen to the others and get an idea if I’ve gone wrong and have time to quickly change it or not. Now I’m not too bothered if I’m first or not as the group are very supportive and helpful. They offer advice and sometimes suggestions as to what I can do next which I find helpful because I can use what they say to improve my ideas and develop them further which improves my scripts.

How did the Covid-19 crisis affect the programme?

We had only met in person a few times before we were put into lockdown. Due to the Coronavirus we were forced to move the programme online which I feel has worked well. We have been able to work away at home all whilst using Zoom weekly to continue our workshops. It benefited us because we got to work with other playwrights we would otherwise not have had the chance to. This allowed us to watch more plays and meant we could arrange Zooms with Ali if we had questions or if we wanted to go over notes with our drafts. Our Zoom sessions have been recorded, meaning that if we couldn’t jump on or the internet decided that we weren’t joining that day we could replay them and arrange another Zoom if we had questions. So, I would say that being online has helped us more, the only thing being that the end performances will now be online which is a shame but still great that we still be able to see them.

 

In what way do you think the support of the Bunbury Banter team was helpful to you?

They are incredibly helpful. I found writing the blogs one of the hardest parts and Ali directed me in a way to make them easier which made my life a lot easier and allowed me to focus more on my drafts than worrying if my blogs were long enough. When we had an online workshop, they would print us all the worksheets we would need and send them to us at home to make sure we had access to them. They allowed us to borrow plays and watch some together. They are incredibly supportive in allowing us to develop our own ideas and letting us choose what happens, they never told us what we needed to write instead gave us small notes which we could use to improve our work.

What advice would you give to someone considering joining the Young Playwrights Programme in the future?

I would say to read as many plays as you can so you can find what you like and what you don’t – it will make the final writing process a lot easier. Let your desk become a mess and take as many notes as you can from workshops – they have come in really handy for me when I’m planning where my play will go next. I would also say don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it because otherwise procrastination sets in and you can fall behind quite quickly if you’re not careful and if you’re like me save everything on a hard drive so you don’t have to rewrite your entire play again in the middle of the night!

 

Images courtesy of Rachel Anderson

Interview by Claire Watts