Since having Spaceboy produced by Peer Productions at the beginning of June, I’ve gotten to know some of the people involved with the theatre company including Scott Freeman and Tony Chessman.
Both young actors, and budding playwrights too, they asked to interview me as part of their Gold Arts Award project, to which I agreed.
I felt the questions and answers would be interesting and maybe beneficial for others, and so, with their permission, I’ve created a blog post.
Enjoy…
Scott: Hi Paul
Hi.
Scott: My first question is to ask why you use PAFoster as your writing name?
Well when I first decided on playwrighting as a career I soon discovered an American playwright called Paul Foster, as well as an English actor/director – and Equity member – with the same name. I knew I needed to have a professional name, but I didn’t want to choose a new one.
My first pet and my mother’s maiden name makes Squeaky Sherman, and that just wasn’t going to work, Scott!
I’ve had the domain name of PAFoster.com – and .co.uk – for a long time and so decided on the semi-pseudonym of PAFoster.
I don’t have spaces or dots between the intial letters and that’s important to me. I have a background in marketing and understand the importance of communication, so I guess I’m just creating a ‘brand’ for myself as a playwright – P!nk comes to mind.
Oh, and since I get asked a lot, the ‘A’ stands for Andrew, my middle name.
Tony: Hi Paul, so what does being a playwright actually involve?
A lot more than just writing, Tony!
A lot of my time is spent listening to other people speak and jotting down interesting bits of overheard speech.
I think a lot too; plots, characters, ideas, all going around in my head waiting to make the leap into my Mac.
Writing per se is probably the smallest element, since there’s plenty of reading and editing and re-writting of the script involved too.
I read a lot of other produced plays, as it’s important for me to understand what works and what doesn’t, and thus how I can improve on my own writing.
Scott: When did you start writing plays, Paul, and why?
My first play was a stage adaptation of the fairy tale Rumplestiltskin for a project at college – that was Alton College, in Hampshire, back in 1986. We were asked to perform to local primary school children as a sort of theatre out-reach program.
I had always been interested in theatre, mainly acting at that early age, having been in all my school plays, but soon found it was exciting to write for the stage as well – I wrote a horror novel in four and a half science exercise books whilst in my 4th year, er, Year 10, at my secondary school. Eggars, in Alton. I loved the idea of creating stories.
I wrote the Rumplestiltskin script, complete with diagams of the setting for each scene, on A4 lined paper at home all in one evening and it was performed a number of times as written without any editing or re-writing at all, so I guess it must have been a pretty good first attempt at creating a play. Oh, and you can guess who had the title role.
A couple of years later whilst on a gap year sort of thing in America I spent time with some people attending a college near Boston, Massachusetts, and was asked by their drama society to write a show for them.
I ended up writing what became – allegedly – America’s first produced pantomime. Quite an experience. I had to educate the cast and audience about the tradition of the English pantomime through the writing. Pantomime in the States is actually what we call mime.
Luckily there were expats in the audience each night so they soon got everyone else going. Great fun. That was also my first expereince of directing which I loved too. I still enjoy acting, but feel I’m a better writer/director than actor.
For me writing has always been a way of expressing myself and my feelings. Right from the beginning. I write because I enjoy it and because I gain a sense of achievement when other people take over where I left off. I like the idea of others producing a piece of theatre from my writing so even more people can experience it and talk about it.
Tony: So what made you realize you wanted to have a career as a playwright?
I wanted to be involved in theatre from an early age, but was always persuaded not to go into the acting profession. I spent 20 years in marketing, but couldn’t take it any more, and my mental health didn’t help either, so I started a crazy project to chill out a bit and take my mind off things.
After listening to a CD of my favourite band on a walk around West Wittering Beach, I had this wacky idea of writing a musical in the same vein as Mamma Mia but using the songs of Erasure. I had big aspirations.
Anyway I found it relatively easy to weave a great story from the lyrics of 20 or so of their songs and spent two years writing Blue Savanah during the little spare time I had.
The images of the stage production are still very clear in my head and I really want to produce it one day – actually, I will produce it one day!
When I finished it, I knew I wanted to write more.
And then a few weeks later an image came into my head of a large domineering mother being dragged by her skinny son across the kitchen floor. He was dragging her by her ankles leaving a trail of smeared blood on the checkered linoleum. The mother had a large pair of tailor’s scissors protruding from her chest.
I knew I had the beginnings of an actual stage play and wrote the full length script for A Spade, A Clock, and A Bloody Pair of Scissors in 4 days flat!
Scott: What is your favourite part of the writing process?
Erm, well, the buzz I get from seeing the plot come together and the play forming is high on the list.
And the bit in the writing when I really get into a character and feel them and how things affect them.
If I’m crying during an emotional speech for a character, then I’m pleased, as it tells me the writing is good.
Tony: Do you have to obtain any specific qualifications to be a playwright?
Not at all. By all means take a BA degree in literature, if you want, or even an MA in creative writing – I know playwrights who have done this, but I know playwrights who were actors or directors and even stage managers, as well as other people that simply entered their play into a competition or sent something they wrote during their lunchs to a theatre and have been ‘discovered’.
Writing a play is an art, and yes there’s got to be some talent there I guess, but you can only learn from actually writing, there isn’t an A’ level in Playwrighting*.
Ah, now there’s an idea!
* Yes, I know that spelling isn’t a word, but it makes sense to me, as I consider ‘wright’ to be a verb, even if it isn’t! My prerogative as a playwright, ie one who crafts plays.
Tony: Does writing a play need any other natural skills or abilities?
Yes, just one thing, and in my opinion, one thing only – passion. You have to be passionate about your writing. You have to be passionate enough to keep writing and learning and improving in your writing. When you are truly passionate, it shows in your writing, it becomes your voice and your work is therefore much more likely to be produced.
Scott: Passion. I’ll remember that. Okay, so what writing courses have you taken, Paul, and which would you say helped you the most?
I consider myself very lucky since I have had arguably the best training I could possibly have had, and it was free.
I was part of the 4th Nuffileld Theatre Writers’ Group in Southampton.
It’s one of only a couple of dedicated professional theatre funded writing groups.
My mentor John Burgess – John was the Head of New Writing at the National Theatre, er, 1989 to 1994, I think, and co-creator of the National Theatre Studio.
He’s well known for directing new works and has been the Script Executive for the Nuffield for a number of years now. At one time it was John who was reading most of the unsolicited plays being sent to London theatres, and it was him who discovered Sarah Daniels, directing her first play.
Damn, I can’t remember the name!
Anyway the premise is the group can all write, so what we spent the two years doing was discovering and practising the elements of a good professionally produced play.
John readily admits he can’t write, but as an experienced director and reader of new plays, he knows exactly what directors and producers are looking for in a professional produceable play. Wow, that’s a good bit of alliteration!
I have a file of notes on about 40 different things to include, and examples of them, though not all of them at once!
These examples go all the way back to greek theatre, so there’s nothing new. It’s just you have to know what they are and be able to spot them in your reading and watching, and then use them in your own writing.
And they are there, even in novels and indeed stuff for the TV and radio, and movies too. It’s great spotting them and saying stuff like – oooh that was stichomythia!
Actually, sorry, to answer your question, I do tend to ramble don’t I, I haven’t taken any specific writing courses as such. And now I don’t need to either!
Scott: Paul, do you have a favourite place to write?
No, sorry. I can write anywhere.
Though, to be honest, I write everything in Scrivener on my MacBook now – excellent writing software by the way – so I need to have it with me to write.
If I’m in the flow I can easily write in a crowded cafe*, but I’m equally happy in the garden with the birds singing.
I keep my black Moleskiene notebook with me all the time, so I can easily jot down ideas or short bits of dialogue that come to me, and those great things people say when they don’t realise I’m listening!
* I’m writing up this interview in the Morrison’s cafe in Woking atm. Richard is doing the weekly shop!
Tony: What for you is the best thing about being a playwright?
Easy. Watching a great performance of an excellent production of a play I’ve written. Spaceboy was awesome!
Scott: And the worst?
The waiting. Getting a script read by a theatre will take a minimum of two months, and it could be four to six months before you hear anything!
When a radio play of mine was sent to a producer last February, it was December before I heard it had been rejected.
It was the first part of Spaceboy that was sent to Radio 4. They loved the style of writing and the story and the fact I was a new writer, but they didn’t like the dark ending.
Scott: How many hours a week – roughly – do you spend writing?
That depends on how I’m feeling.
Most writers say that if writing is your job, then you should write something, say 500 words, every day. I don’t subscribe to that theory.
I write when I can. And to be honest I can go months without writing because of my bipolar. And then write four months worth in four days non-stop.
It’s certainly not ideal writing in this way, in fact it can very, very frustrating, especially when you are close to finishing a play.
90% of the play I’m currently trying to finish was written over a two week period back in January. And I really have to finish this first before I continue with other projects I am working on.
If I’m in the flow, like I was when I started writing the play, I can write for eight to ten hours a day for at least a couple of weeks, which is usually enough to get a decent first draft into my Mac.
Mind you it usually means I’m so busy writing, I forget to eat and properly. Sometimes I don’t even sleep much!
Can’t stop the flow!
Tony: Wow. And what about research then?
Scott: Yeah, how much would you say goes into your plays?
Ah, now that depends entirely on the play. Some don’t need any, but others do, a bit.
I tend to steer clear of research to be honest. If I’m researching, I’m not writing, am I. A little bit of Wiki-ing during the writing is about my limit!
Actually, come to think of it there’s alway the exception to the rule isn’t there – You see, I’ve been working on a musical. It’s set in Nazi occupied Paris during World War Two and it needs a lot of research!
I even requested a thesis from a university graduate in Australia, since she was one of only a couple of people who seem to have actually researched the topic I’ll be writing about.
Scott: An exception to prove the rule then.
Yeah, probably why it’s taking ages to get started on the actual writing!
Tony: So, is it easy to find work as a playwright?
Er, no. There are more playwrights in England than there are in the rest of the world combined – having said that, the market is huge, it’s just getting in professionally that’s difficult.
Anyone who has written a few lines of dialogue and had thier local amdram group do something with it calls themselves a writer. I’ve been there myself. But I’ve learnt so much on my Nuffield program.
Getting a professional production of a play you have written can take years. To be honest, you have to write and write and write and try and convince someone to produce a piece of your work.
It’ll take years, and then once people know you can write a play, then maybe someone or a theatre will commision you to write some thing for them.
I suppose what I mean is, the work will find you if you’re good enough.
The also tend to suddenly produce the work that everyone rejected before you became known.
Scott: Paul, who is your favourite playwright?
Tony: And why?
Edward Bond is one of them. Sarah Daniels is a favourite too.
Sorry to dissapoint you, I’ve no idea why. Something just clicks with me when I read their plays I guess.
Scott: In Spaceboy you used the music of David Bowie to great effect; has music influenced any other aspects of your writing?
Music is very important in a play – it’s one of those 40 or so elements I mentioned – I try to get in some form of it in most of my work now.
Maybe a character plays an instrument, has a favourite band they sing along to a lot, or maybe there’s singing, or just music playing on a radio in the background, that has relevance.
I’m not talking about the music played during a scene change here.
For me the music generally comes from the character or the beginnings of the story.
With Spaceboy, Bowie’s Major Tom Trilogy became very instrumental in shaping the piece, in fact it ended up actually developing the story, becoming the plot almost, as well as providing the title.
Spaceboy is from Bowie’s Hello Spaceboy which was released by the Pet Shop Boys as a remix – not that I discovered it till I wikied Major Tom as a little research for the play.
The titles of the two parts are actually from the Hallo Spaceboy lyric said at the begining and end of the song – “If I Fall, Moondust Will Cover Me”.
To be honest, as the story developed in my head, Bowie’s Major Tom trilogy became very important in itself, with the lyrics actually telling the story in parts where the characters were unable to speak themselves.
For me a song can mean something and a characters thoughts or words can spark off a memory of it for me.
If the song fits with what I’m writing then I may end up including a reference to it, or a lyric from it, or indeed the actual song itself in the play.
Rage Against the Machine’s Killing In The Name is included in the play i’m finishing at the moment, as the character of Aron sings along to it whilst a music video of it plays on the TV.
The song sums up his feelings at the specific time in basically the same way as different songs mean different things to different people at different times.
Music can be so instrumental in our lives, so including it in a play is very important to me. It makes my characters more believable.
Incidentally the musical set in Paris I mentioned earlier was totally inspired by one synth-pop song from my teenage years that I heard again on the radio last year. It was very popular when I was younger.
Since you can now find lyrics to practically any song by typing the title into Google, I did, because I wanted to understand what a particular word was they were singing.
I discoved the song was about a french teenage subculture that lasted about 18 months during World War Two and is now almost forgotten about. Probably why it has been difficult to research.
My musical will be jazz based, and will not use the song I’m referring to at all, but it’s interesting to note the idea for the musical came about from me listening to one song.
Scott: Oh, so what’s the song?
Haha, it’s by the Pet Shop Boys! I’ll leave you to work out which one though!
Tony: Paul, would you recomend your career paths to young people who may share your aspirations?
I think the only thing I can say is it’s very important to me that young people to do what they really want to do in life, what they believe in, what they have a real passion for.
If you have passion for model train sets, then make a living with model trains. Why work hard to pay the mortgage in a job you’re not passionate about only to have a few hours a week to indulge in the hobby you are passionate about?
Do what you really want to do in life.
Yes, you may struggle financially at the beginning – to be honest I still do a bit – but happiness in the way you choose to provide for yourself in life is, in my opinion anyway, far more important than the money.
You can live frugally if you need to. It’s just a mind set. I’ve always believed if do what you’re really passionate about, the money will come to you.
Working for me anyway. I’m much better off now than I was before I started writing.
Scott: I’m currently writing my second play, are there any tips you could give to help me better my writing?
Just one. Only write for yourself.
Don’t right stuff in a particular way thinking it will fit in somewhere and be produced.
Producers/Directors are looking for writers with a voice – Writers who have something to say in the way that only they can say it.
Be yourself, don’t try and write like somebody else, that person has already done it.
Having said that, there’s nothing wrong with studying the work of someone you admire though, and even emulating their work, but make sure you have your own voice.
As an example, compare Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Agatha has a totally different voice and style, and you’d never think the two were connected, but it is clear they are and that Conan Doyle’s writing influenced Christie’s*.
Notice all the main characters: Poirot – Holmes, Hastings – Watson, Japp – Lestrade, Miss Lemon – Mrs Hudson.
Both sets of novels and short stories are also written in the first person from the point of view of the detectives’ assistant. Oh and both authors hated being best known for their fictional detective. I’m rambling again aren’t I!
Oh, and of course, Conan-Doyle was greatly inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and acknowledged basing his Holmes detective stories on the model of Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin.
In plawright terms, I understand Mark Ravenhill intently studied all the works of Edward Bond before writing his first play, Shopping and Fucking.
In my case, I was insired by Sarah Daniels’ radio play ‘The Sound Barrier’ and Spaceboy uses the same methods to tell it’s story. I.e.: monolgues from the characters with the main character of the story only referenced in the speeches of the the other characters. Spaceboy has it’s own voice though. It’s distinctly me. Writing it – completely by accident – in the present tense continuous made it stand out too. – Sorry, you can tell I’m passionate about my writing, can’t you!
* Having just wikied this, I’ll quote: ‘In An Autobiography Christie admits that “I was still writing in the Sherlock Holmes tradition – eccentric detective, stooge assistant, with a Lestrade-type Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Japp.”
Tony: Haha! Yes! So what would be the apex of your career as a playwright then, Paul?
Having a play running in the West End.
There. A short answer!
Scott: So what’s in the pipeline?
Well, there’s a few things I’m working on.
My full length two-handed play that’s very nearly done – I’ve promised myself an iPhone when it is!
A short play about the effects of depression from my internal perspective – inspired incidently by Sarah Kane’s Psychosis 4:43. I only write it when I’m in a downish mood, sort of cathartic.
Then there’s the Paris musical, i’m researching, and indeed a collabrorative project with an acting school in Bury St Edmunds.
I’m also helping my protege, Tom Fidler, to write stage adaptions of a number of the short stories from Conan Doyles’ The adventures of Sherlock Holmes. As well as my own adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
I’m also planning on writing an episodic play set on a racecourse soon.
I readily admit I’m working on a lot of projects, and yes, probably too many as well, but that’s what having a passion does for you.
Tony: Plenty of writing to get on with then! Finally Paul, is there a particular play you’ve read or seen you wish you’d written, and if so which one?
Early Morning, by Edward Bond.
It was first produced by the Royal Court in 1968. It’s a “savage satirical dream play”, in which Queen Victoria has a lesbian affair with Florence Nightingale, and the princes Arthur and George are locked together as conjoined twins.
There’s a wonderful tug of war at the edge of a cliff and the characters all fall to their deaths. They go to Heaven and the final act sees the characters consuming each other as they descend into cannibalism!
A nightmare to stage, but a brilliant play none the less.
Tony: Thanks Paul! That’s brilliant!
Scott: Yes, thank you!
You too guys. Been a pleasure!
