Wow, what a feeling!

The first professional performance of a play I have written took place last night in Hammersmith, London W6.

Though having any performance of a play is a great achievement for any writer, it’s important for me as an aspiring playwright to move forwards from writing and directing my own work with local amateur dramatic groups to getting my work professionally produced.

I also had my first experience of directing professional actors, which to be honest was a bit daunting at first, but I soon took it in my stride. I had a vision of the characters and how they talked etc and as soon as I got this across to the actors, they responded well and their professionalism bore more than just fruit.

Because of the nature of the evening we were allocated an hour for what should have been a quick discussion and ‘table reading’, and then a couple of run-throughs. Sadly, the actor playing the teacher was delayed and we ended up with about 20 minutes of rehearsal time in which we had a discussion, reading and runthrough all at once.

There simply wasn’t the time for me to do my usual ‘I wont interrupt but will just bring it up in passing later’ – I had to get right on in there and ‘direct’.

The actors had their ideas, having studied the text for the last couple of weeks, but they were looking to me as their director (and in this case, as the playwright too) for guidance and of course ‘direction’ on wether what they had interpreted was right for the piece.

I’m actually amazed how much I learnt about myself as a director in the 20 minutes I had working with these professional actors. I’m so grateful for the experience and really look forward to doing this more.

There was a smaller than usual audience of about 50 last night, and when it was time for Room 20’s debut performance I was at the back – with a small hand bell!

Although I had taken my ever faithful Mac with me, complete with a sound effect of a school bell ready and waiting in iTunes, it wouldn’t play.

I download the file from the internet a few days ago, and for some reason, although it is saved as an mp3 file in iTunes, I have to be connected to the internet to play it. Weird.

Luckily I discovered all this in the interval, and then had to think frantically about how I was going to do a sound effect of a school bell.

I managed to catch the eye of the building’s manager and beckoned him outside the room to explain my predicament. Thankfully he took up the challenge of a hunt and just as the play was being introduced a couple of minutes later, he appeared with three different bells – god knows where from – and I just grabbed one and rang it as the play started in front of me!

It was great to watch, and weird, in the sense that I was rather detached.

I’d spent a lot of time interviewing some of the young people from the Riverside Youth Theatre during the summer, from which the idea for the story and indeed the style of dialogue came, and after at least twenty hours of writing and editing for what was a short play of about ten-fifteen minutes (In my haste of trying to source a bell sound effect, I forget to time it.) it was now being performed and coming to life in front of me.

It had come from inside my head and was now ‘alive’ going into other peoples’ heads, and as such wasn’t mine any more. Very weird feeling.

There were a few ‘nervous’ laughs at the beginning, as always seems to be the case when watching an evening of plays in which you don’t know if what you’re going to see next is a straight play or a comedy.

You end up laughing a little even, if a line or action wasn’t particularly funny, just so that you don’t feel a pratt for not laughing if indeed the play is supposed to be a comedy. Then when you realise it’s a serious play, the laughter stops and hopefully by then your hooked.

This is what happened last night and I was so pleased with the subsequent deathly silence from the audience, not a rustle of sweets, or shift of position on the chair, or a checking of the watch, nothing – just silence. It was great!

By Act III, (Room 20 was written as part of my Nuffield Theatre Writers Group coursework and the brief was to write a ten minute play in 3 acts) the actors had really gotten into their parts, which was fantastic considering they’d only had 20 minutes of rehearsal with each other, and ‘Jase’s last speech in which he really shows his insecurities and the true reason for his bullying was very emotional for me.

You’d have thought I would have been fine with it, but for me it was exactly the same as if I had been watching a moving part of a film or another play. The fact that it was my play and I had written it and I knew exactly what was coming didn’t make any difference.

I was very surprised to have felt like that, which is a true testament to the quality of the acting: In fact a couple of members of the audience said it was ‘powerful’ – which was a great compliment.

Talking to the actor afterwards, he said he could really feel for ‘Jase’ at that point and had felt he had ‘got inside him’ which for me was an odd thing to hear, but I could see exactly what he meant, and it had definitely showed.

Brilliant.

I must thank the actors Lee Peck and Phil Gerrard for a great performance and bringing the characters of the bullying student ‘Jase’ and the caring teacher ‘Tim’ to life. It was great to watch. It really was a pleasure to work with them and to see the results of their hard work – Thanks guys!

Also, thanks to Mark, Adam, Fleur and Viv, from the Riverside Youth Theatre who came to see the performance. It was so great to have your support, guys – Thanks!

So, the first professional script-in-hand performance (rehearsed reading) of my work has made it from the page to the stage as they say, and boy am I pleased with the results.

It didn’t win the competition, but I’m not surprised given the high standard of the entries. I was up against professional playwrights all used to having their work performed, so it was really comforting to hear that mine was of an equal standard and didn’t stand out as being any different from them in terms of the quality of the work.

So, onwards an upwards. Time to get on with some more writing. I’m working on my next piece of coursework for the Nuffield Theatre Writers Group, a 44 minute radio play suitable for the afternoon slot on Radio 4. The third speaking character that I have been looking for but has held me up for a few weeks, came to me as I was waking up this morning, so I’m really pleased.

I now need to put in a lot of work, as it’s due by the middle/end of February, and the rest of December is basically booked up with event work in Coventry and a Christmas holiday with Rich in Italy. (Lake Garda with day trips to Verona on Chistmas Eve and Venice on Boxing Day! Lovely!)

Right, I’m off…

–

Oh, and a PS: My one act play ‘A Spade, A Clock and Pair of Bloody Scissors!’ (written in February 2006) will be getting performed in the New Year, (4th Jan) but more on that in another post.

Oh and a PPS: Happy Birthday, Dad!