Process Over Product
Coordinating the Young Playwrights Project while Ali has been on maternity leave has been a lovely undertaking. As a playwright and film writer myself, it nurtures my inspiration to reflect on the playwrighting process, to interrogate what makes a good piece of theatre great, and try to help build upon the community of writers and artists Bunbury Banter continues to awaken in Dumfries and Galloway.
I first met Ali via Zoom when I was living in Vancouver, Canada working in the film industry and casting an array of extras and body doubles for high budget productions such as Charmed and Superman. This was a different world - getting muddled with time differences, seeing different nooks and crannies of the entertainment world while being inspired by the beautiful old trees of North America. This time challenged me to keep a handle on my own spiralling writing projects and scraps of scripts.
Returning to Glasgow after a two-year working visa was about reacquainting myself with a lovely world of plays and playwrights that I admire. It hasn’t always been smooth - battling covid quarantines and tricky University and working schedules meant we had to be creative in finding ways to ensure we prioritised finding time to meet online. However, once we found a groove, we went from strength to strength, exploring perspectives on writing and scripts, experimenting with exercises and ideas while fitting in many a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive or three.
It's been a real privilege to meet some young female writers and help them shape exciting and dynamic ideas into scripts that speak to the world as it is today. In coordinating workshops, we had the pleasure of learning with a fantastic line-up of leading writers – from Stef Smith and Douglas Maxwell to Louise Stephens of the Playwright Studio and devising writer Mariem Omari – offering a range of talent and perspectives to the modern world of playwrighting in Scotland. I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about the Zoom element to workshops. Will it be possible to share work properly? Will it prevent our writers getting to know one another and being the support network for each other that many creatives thrive upon? While Zoom workshops can sometimes feel like they might be less engaging than in-person meetings, not only were the delivering playwrights creative in form and function in planning, but Zoom also allowed our participants to join from London, Glasgow and Dumfries, spanning the country. One thing most workshop-leading writers spoke about was the need for strength, confidence and self-belief as a writer, a lesson that it is vital to learn, over learn and relearn in an industry that requires creative resilience against frequent rejection.
Talking about plays and particularly what makes pieces of theatrical writing excellent feels a little bit like pulling apart a jigsaw puzzle. While we can still see the picture, understanding how the writer crafts interlocking pieces is a thoroughly enriching, and often confusing process. Playing with ideas with writers new to the game has been a lovely way to re-ignite my skills. As someone who loves to learn via teaching it’s been wonderful to challenge myself in regards to interrogating why my tastes are as they are, and refusing to gravitate too readily towards certain playwrights or theatrical styles. It has also reminded me to prioritise my process over the products I create, and the prevailing need to nurture my artistic self and confidence.
I feel fortunate to have been a small piece of a puzzle that is helping to uncover some amazing new voices for stage and some beautiful nuggets of writing. It’s easy to forget about the process – one of building confidence, of making time for the writer as well as the play, and of carefully shutting out the (at times) deafening voices that try and make us spend our time on easier activities that do not make our hearts sing in quite the same way. The much quieter voices, the gentle ones that guide our stories and push through challenging and demotivational days sat in front of an empty page are the ones that we need to tune into, and doing this requires a community to support the process in addition to the product. Each play and indeed, each page is always the start of a new journey.
To our wonderful cohort of four: Best of luck and well done!
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