Hooking An Audience In
After taking a COVID-19 related break from Bunbury Banter, it was so lovely to see the group again at our latest gathering! I’d forgotten how nice it is to just sit (virtually, on Zoom of course) with a small group of people and chat about how we all are and about the plays we’ve been reading and the digital
theatre we’ve been watching.
We talked about the recent Nicola McCartney workshop and I was so struck by the way we’d all been impacted by the workshop in different ways – from simply feeling a boost in confidence or being inspired by some of Nicola’s thoughts. I was very sad to not actually get to (virtually!) meet our fourth workshop leader, however that didn’t stop me from feeling really engaged with the recording of the workshop that I watched back.
Nicola said many, many things that resonated with me (too many to list here) and she also gave us some very practical insights which I loved. I really enjoy finding new ways of thinking about different elements of playwriting and some of the more nitty-gritty technical things. One piece of Nicola’s advice that I think resonated the most with me was that in the first few minutes of your play, you want the audience to lean in. A writer needs to present the audience with something that they want to know more about – we want to hook them in. The audience wants to know:
Where am I?
Who is that?
What’s their problem?
Having such simple questions – or ‘hooks’ – in mind when thinking about how you want to begin a play is massively helpful for me. Perhaps the most crucial element of this tip from Nicola is that the audience wants the answers to these questions, but we cannot provide the answers straight away because then the play really would be over before it even begins.
I also found the questions that Nicola asked us interesting, particularly – what was your worst experience at a theatre? Which is something I’m not sure I’ve been asked before. In asking that question it was like we’d been given permission to be honest, and also to acknowledge that you’re not going to love every play you read or see, and that’s totally fine. Thinking about this since, I’ve reflected a lot on my tendency to feel like I should like everything. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think within playwriting not liking something is completely valid, as long as you know why. This was the key part for me and something I know I’m going to work on further – being able to admit to not liking something and also being able to articulate why. Essentially, knowing what you don’t like (and why) is often as helpful as knowing what you do like.
Overall, it’s just been really nice to get back into things. I’ve read two plays since our last gathering which is more than I’ve read of anything in a few weeks! And, generally, I’ve just been struck by how different each of our workshops has been and how there’s always been something particularly brilliant and insightful within each one.
Eilidh Nurse
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