Sussex Playwrights April 2020 podcast

April meeting news

Sussex Playwrights announcement

Discussion, Performance, Readings and Networking
For all types of dramatic writing…
Theatre, film, radio, podcast, audiobook…
Sussex Playwrights has been promoting new writing since 1935.

Festivals have been postponed, theatres are closing down and the NVT have cancelled their current production, so in keeping with current advice we won’t be holding a Sussex Playwrights April meeting.

We hope you’ll understand that we’re being careful.

Sussex Playwrights goes temporarily virtual

For April, we’ll be launching our occasional podcast series, so you can enjoy an online ‘meeting’ with us at the usual time. Just click the arrow at the top of the post to listen.

Hear the conversations we held in February with Sussex Playwrights writer/actor members who produce, create and perform their own work on stage, on screen and online.

Featuring Janet Behan, Eddie Alford, Tristan Woolf, James Alexander Allen, Thomas Everchild and Philippa Hammond

April meeting details

Date: Sunday April 5th

Time: from 19.00 onwards

Place: your laptop, pad or phone at www.sussexplaywrights.co.uk

We hope to see you at the May meeting – we’ll keep you posted.

All welcome

Announcing the Podcast One Minute Fiction Challenge

Short writing challenges – flash fiction, writing prompts, etc – are very popular. We’ve been exploring some short fiction challenges recently with some success, and we’re going to introduce them to Sussex Playwrights online. News about how it works and how you can play coming soon.

Announcing the 2020-2021 Constance Cox Prize Playwriting Competition

With the rise and rise of Print On Demand publishing, we’re planning to promote writers and writing by publishing the first collection of plays for stage under the Sussex Playwrights brand. We touched on the theme of self publishing at the February meeting and we’ll be discussing the ins and outs of publishing your own work in more depth here soon, with insights from our Secretary Thomas Everchild.

Our next Constance Cox Prize Playwriting Competition will also be a call for entries for this collection.

Details will be published here soon.

2020 for your diary

TBA AGM – Please do attend the Sussex Playwrights AGM for your chance to stand for election in a committee post, vote for candidates and have a say in how the Club is run. Posts:
Chair
Vice Chair
Secretary
Treasurer
Committee members
If you would like to stand for one of these posts, or if you would like any motion discussed at the AGM, please email Philippa Hammond chair@sussexplaywrights.co.uk

Virtual meeting dates May 3 Jun 7 Jul 5 Aug 2 – news as we get it

If you’d like to discuss recording a short piece of your writing for inclusion in a future podcast, please email Philippa Hammond chair@sussexplaywrights.co.uk

See you soon.

 

Sussex Playwrights

Welcome to Sussex Playwrights

For writers, producers, directors, actors and anyone with a passion for plays

Sussex Playwrights Writers Link

We promote new writing for stage, screen, radio, audio and on-line.

Our purpose is to encourage new work from writers throughout the English speaking world.

Sussex just happens to be where we started, in 1935.

More about Sussex Playwrights…

Honorary President and Vice President William Nicholson

Sussex Playwrights Honorary President and Vice President …

 

Playwright, novelist and screenwriter William Nicholson

Author of

His latest film Breathe, directed by Andy Serkis
Shadowlands
Les Miserables
Gladiator
First Knight
Elizabeth: The Golden Age

is our Honorary President.

About William and his work: www.williamnicholson.com

For many years the late Sir Peter Shaffer was Sussex Playwrights’ Honorary President.


Honorary Vice President

In a role previously held by the actor Paul Moriarty, our Honorary Vice President is a long-term Sussex Playwrights member

Playwright and screenwriter Judy Upton

Author of

Ashes and Sand
Sliding with Suzanne
Bruises
Sunspots
People on the River

Her plays are published by Methuen Drama

About Judy and her work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_Upton

Thank you to William and Judy for their support of new writing in the region

from Chair Philippa Hammond, Secretary Thomas Everchild and the Sussex Playwrights committee and members

Take part

How to have your work read and discussed at a meeting

Work in progress or for sharing

We’re looking to members and guests to take part in meetings and showcase their work

If you’d like to have actors read an excerpt from your latest script in progress for discussion [10 minute slot]

If you’d like to read an excerpt from your latest fiction or non-fiction on the night [10 minute slot]

If you’d prefer to have someone read it for you, if you’re happier writing than speaking

Please contact us chair@sussexplaywrights.co.uk

Ideas for guest speakers

If you can suggest a great guest speaker for one of our meetings – please get in touch with us.

Ideas for workshops

Are there any particular workshops you’d like to have as part of a meeting?

Suggestions so far include:Reading aloud to an audience – For authors, being able to deliver an excerpt from your poetry, fiction or non fiction to an audience can raise your profile and increase your sales

Acting script-in-hand for beginners – being able to take a script and bring it to life with a group reading is a great skill for writers, and can help you appreciate what makes dialogue playable

Crowd funding your writing – how writers can create their own fundraising project online to support themselves and their creative work.

Audio drama performance skills – an essential toolkit of skills for anyone interested in performing audio drama

Please contact us

Follow and share

Send us your latest news and successes to feature on social media

‘Like’ the Sussex Playwrights Facebook Page for the latest news and links

Follow us on Twitter @PlaywrightsClub

Brighton Actors Networking

Castings are announced on the Sussex Playwrights Facebook Page and on Brighton Actors Networking Facebook Page and Group.
The Group is open to all aspiring, training, pre-professional and professional actors and anyone in related fields.

Brighton Actors Networking Group and Sussex Playwrights

Sussex Playwrights casts its readings from actors in Brighton and Hove and the surrounding area.

Castings are announced on the Sussex Playwrights Facebook Page and on Brighton Actors Networking Facebook Group.
The Group is open to all aspiring, training, pre-professional and professional actors and anyone in related fields.

We encourage

Networking

Sharing opinion and advice

Casting news

Services – classes, workshops, photography etc – relevant to actors

Debates and alerts to issues

Performance news

Brighton Actors Networking Facebook Page

Brighton Actors Networking Facebook Group
 

Brighton Actors Networking Facebook Page and Group were founded and developed by Thomas Everchild and Philippa Hammond [secretary and chair of Sussex Playwrights].

‘We knew there was a big and active community of actors in Brighton and Hove – but there was nowhere online for networking and sharing.

A chance conversation at an event in 2013 sparked the idea to create a Facebook Page and Group for actors in the city.

We created the Page that evening and by the end of the first weekend had over 100 members.

The Group followed quickly, and together they have over 2000 members today.’

Philippa Hammond

Sussex Playwrights Reviews: Julius Caesar

Brighton Shakespeare Company

Brighton Open Air Theatre

A unique experience – reviewing two different performances over two nights as the elements put in a spectacular first night appearance in Brighton Shakespeare Company’s tense, intense and cool new production of Julius Caesar at the Brighton Open Air Theatre.

Dreadful portents and bad omens set the dark mood of the play, and on the first night, that uneasy threatening sense spilled out into the real world. Crows flapping about over the darkening space, distant sirens in the city and a lowering sky, sullen thunder, flashes of lightning – the theatricality was spectacular and we were riveted. Called off at the interval with  ‘cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!’ – well, we had to come back for more.

Shakespeare’s tale of unrest, mistrust, angry mobs, betrayals and conspiracies feels uneasily real right now, and is presented in BSC’s signature pared down style, this time inspired by a Tarantino aesthetic.

The mood’s sombre, a simple black and white pallette, dark suits, shades and little black dresses, with washes of red light for the conspiratorial exchanges on the bare green stage.

Taught, punchy direction by Mark Brailsford with Sarah Mann and Kerren Garner, and some stylish unpleasantness from the fight arranging team Jack Kristiansen and Josh Plummer mean the show zips along with energy and pace.

Julian Parkin’s Caesar is a restrained and distant being, a god of human frailties.

As the conspirators, Sean McLevy’s blazing Cassius, Deborah Kearne’s slyly amused and knowing Casca and Stewart Barham’s infinite sadness over what he must do light up their shifting, fatally intertwined relationships.

Andrew Crouch as a youthful, commanding Mark Anthony delivers a magnificent performance, huge-voiced and passionate.

Kerren Garner’s Portia and Tia Dunn’s Calpurnia show another side of the politics of powerful men; the wives who must bear the spotlight and share their husbands on a huge stage. Demanding then begging for attention, notice and consideration, these are too-brief glimpses of two formidable women.

Great support from a multi-roling team, George Derbyshire, Mark Brailsford, Jules Craig, AW King, Katy Matthews and Oscar Smart, and a sweet and ultimately heartrending turn by Phoebe Elliot as the boy Lucius.

The play continues through Sunday at BOAT. 

Details at http://www.brightonshakespearecompany.co.uk/

Philippa Hammond

Sussex Playwrights Reviews: The Ghost In The Machine (The Seance)

A Sussex Playwrights first – we review John Knowles’ new online play created entirely in lockdown

Sussex Playwrights Reviews:

The Ghost In The Machine (The Seance)

A Zoom play by John Knowles

Cast:
Amelia – Emily Carding (editor)
Alice – Sabina Arthur
Frank Sidney Kean
Pete – Patrick Kealey
Gary – John Knowles
The Ghost – Dominique Gerrard (director)
Gary’s Wife Susan Elliott

May’s an amazing time for creativity, here in Brighton and Sussex.

At the time of writing, Brighton Festival, Fringe and Artists’ Open Houses should be happening all over the city.

But as we all know, it’s all off for now.

Instead, an extraordinary flowering of creativity is happening online. Artists are creating new audio, TV, film, music and different ways of communicating all using the internet. We’re seeing ambitious live Shakespeare performances in isolation, new audio dramas and commercials all filmed in the actors’ own homes.

And here’s a first for Sussex Playwrights Reviews – a brand new play by John Knowles, filmed and delivered entirely online, a collage of actors’ faces and backgrounds all recording into their own devices in isolation.

An online seance is about to begin. The familiar group is gathering together in isolation for the first time, led by medium Amelia (Emily Carding), all smoky eyed and ethereal in the Northern lights – until of course it all begins to go wrong. She’s dragged out of her carefully cultivated persona, as slightly pissed Gary (author John Knowles) crashes into the meeting.

The play has great fun with the social and technological awkwardness we all share in the New Normal; as you can’t hold hands, just how do you cope with that online? Those interruptions from family, arguments and unfortunate revelations when mute hasn’t worked – they’re all so now.

Amelia’s valiantly holding together the wafty ‘is there anybody there’ schtick, but finally losing it in the face of intransigent irritating people is very funny.

But the note turns dark when another participant logs in and gains control of the meeting.

Knowles’ writing ranges from amusing parody, closely observed online chat and exasperated rows, to the final editorial tone of the play’s real message.

The fun, relatable premise leads us into explorations of online spying, Zoom bombing, and just how much information, personal details and secrets about ourselves do our computers contain – and who has access to it?

It’s real lockdown theatre for now.

Watch here (20 mins)

Philippa Hammond

March 2020 meeting report

March 2020 report

Actor/writer members performed extracts from their own solo plays, followed by conversation with Philippa and the group about their writing and performance practice.

Janet Behan’s ‘Why Shouldn’t I Go?’ tells the stories of three very different Irishwomen who share one thing in common, religion and the impact it has had on their lives.

Robert Cohen’s ‘Something Rotten’ premiered at the Barnstaple Fringe Theatrefest, and went on to win an Argus Angel award at the 2016 Brighton Fringe.

Simon Jenner, playwright, poet and prolific and tireless reviewer of theatre in London and Sussex, gave an overview of the thirty or so productions he’s seen and reviewed in 2020 alone!

All the best, everyone – please do keep writing, listening, watching and talking everything to do with creating new drama for stage, screen, radio and internet. Hope to see you soon.

April 2020 meeting news

Philippa Hammond, chair

Thomas Everchild, secretary

February 2020 meeting report

Sussex Playwrights February 2020 meeting

Sussex Playwrights was first formed in 1935 to promote members’ writing.

In the 21st century one of the best ways to spread the word is to get the writer’s voice out there, using the text and sound publishing systems available to us.

Sussex Playwrights: The Podcast

At our February 2020 meeting, we recorded material for our podcast introduction and promotion.

A chance for members to make short announcements about upcoming projects and productions.

In future podcasts we’ll include readings and interviews with writers, actors, directors and producers.

Announcing the 2020-2021 Constance Cox Prize Playwriting Competition

With the rise and rise of Print On Demand publishing, we’re planning to promote writers and writing by publishing the first collection of plays for stage under the Sussex Playwrights brand.

Our next Constance Cox Prize Playwriting Competition will also be a call for entries for this collection.

Details will be published on the website later on.

Enquiries to Thomas Everchild, secretary@sussexplaywrights.co.uk

January 2019 meeting

January report

We kicked off our 2020 with new writing, a glass of wine and great conversation with Sussex Playwrights.


Our guest, actor Heather-Rose Andrews, had just returned from her Christmas in New York where she performed Sam Chittenden’s adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, to audience and critical acclaim.


Heather was in conversation with Philippa discussing the business of adaptation, re-imagining a classic work for the stage, and performing in an iconic New York venue to great reviews.


And James Alexander Allen presented a reading by Tristan Woolf and Kevin Cherry from his latest script We Can Be Villains for discussion and analysis.


If you’d like to bring a short piece for a scratch reading on a club night, email Philippa Hammond chair@sussexplaywrights.co.uk

A Christmas Carol

 
 
Sussex Playwrights Reviews
A Christmas Carol
Lantern Light Theatre
 
Adapted by Sophie Flack
Directed by Kerren Garner
Technical support Katy Matthews
Music Tom Dussek
Violin Seth Morgan
 
It’s the night before Christmas and Scrooge is having spectral visitations showing him the past, the present – and what the future might bring, if he doesn’t mend his ways.
 
Dickens’ best loved and most produced work is everywhere this Christmas and we can’t get enough of it here in Brighton this winter.
 
This satisfying and faithful new adaptation from Lantern Light Theatre offers an Austerity Britain take. Narrator Deborah Kearne gathers the tale together in the role of a homeless woman, highlighting the central theme of poverty and want, and the possibility of change in all our hands. A word from Sussex Homeless Support after the show delivered the lasting message that this is some people’s Christmas present.
 
Lantern Light’s USP is the ability to fit venue and show, and St Nicholas’ Church, probably Brighton’s oldest building, is a terrific venue. Eerie sound and lighting design by Dan Skelt highlight rood screen, dais, long aisles and real candlelight, with London fog drifting about the ivy-wreathed stone pillars creating atmosphere, visuals and mood which a theatre just can’t offer.
 
Seth Morgan’s Scrooge, all forkbeard and power brows, takes the commanding lead. The supporting cast double multiple roles most effectively, using each actor’s own physicality with style. As the ghosts, Sophie Flack flits between white lady Christmas spirit and the girls of Scrooge’s past, and Tom Dussek’s the rich-voiced personification of a Green Man spirit. Robert Cohen clanks with elegance as Marley’s chained ghost and Ben Baeza’s a charming Tim, while director Kerren Garner adds a great note of grim humour as the corpse-robbing Charwoman.
 
Churches were made for singing, at which the production excels, and the occasional echo issue aside, the tale was told crystal clear, packed with audience enjoying mulled wine and mince pies.
 
The production is touring this Christmas, with venues including the Round Tower in Portsmouth and St Dunstan’s Church Mayfield, East Sussex.
 
Tickets
 

December 2020 meeting

 
Sussex Playwrights presents:
An evening with William Nicholson
 
Thank you to William Nicholson, our Honorary President and special guest at last night’s Sussex Playwrights
 
 
William gave terrific insights into the reality of being a novelist, playwright and A-list screenwriter, his personal practice, including developing self discipline and lifelong writing habits, the stages of getting a film from first talks to release, the process of raising a budget for a self-directed feature and how the industry really works.
 
He also shared the personal impact that feedback, reviews and the awards process can have on the writer.
 
The event concluded with audience Q&A, networking and drinks in a room packed with writers, actors and drama makers.
 
William also directs and his new film Hope Gap, based on his Tony award-nominated play The Retreat from Moscow and partly filmed in Sussex, will be released next year