Welcome to Sussex Playwrights
For writers, producers, directors, actors and anyone with a passion for plays
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.
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
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
To contact Sussex Playwrights
Contact Sussex Playwrights
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter @PlaywrightsClub
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 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’ secretary Thomas Everchild delivered a workshop this week for the Hastings Writers Group, at the charming and characterful Regency Rooms bar, in the seafront Crown House, St Leonard’s.
The group are preparing for their latest in-house writing competition; a short dramatic monologue. They invited Thomas, whose set of four solo plays under the title Glimpse won a series of four star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe, to deliver a workshop on plot and character for creating their monologues.
The event began by featuring a spot task to introduce yourself with a brief summary of the plot of a favourite book, film or play – the aim being to convey intrigue and detail in a very short space.
The conversation ranged through narrator style, tone of voice, subtext, settings and location, and the question … should the writer include stage directions to the director and actors?
We talked soliloquy and monologue, establishing that though they both have the same roots meaning ‘one’ and ‘words’, they do convey different ideas.
Several demonstrations included anecdote and impromptu short story / shaggy dog story from Thomas and an extract from Glimpse: Turning the Handle, performed by Philippa Hammond.
Top tips included imaginatively ‘casting’ well known actors or friends in the role you’re writing as a way to inspire, taking inspiration from animal behaviour and presenting the quirk – the oddity that identifies your character.
Then if you’re writing for a particular actor who’ll be playing it, taking their essence, their voice, and building that in can be a great guide.
We looked at the importance of deciding whether your character is talking to someone who is ‘there’ but invisible, or if the audience represents the character, if they’re talking to an audience … or if the audience are eavesdropping on their thoughts and observing them in secret.
We finished with a practical task – an out-of-the air location, a few story points and we were off, with seven minutes or so to write a monologue based on that premise.
Then we shared the stories and finished with a brief Q and A.
Thankyou to the Hastings Writers Group for your participation and enthusiasm – a great opportunity for Sussex Playwrights to meet and connect with you.
Philippa Hammond
A
About the March 2023 meeting
All are welcome to attend our March meeting this Sunday 5th.
Advance notice There will shortly be a formal call for entries to Sussex Playwrights 2023 script writing competition.
Last time we had 48 entries. As before, this time we’ll be calling for volunteer readers to help review the entries and establish a long list and short list.
The competition will open for entries very soon. More details on the night.
See www.sussexplaywrights.co.uk and our Sussex Playwrights Facebook Page for news about the competitions as it develops.
Play readings We’re inviting you to bring along your short 10 minute two-hander pieces for reading and discussing on the night. Work in progress, performance-ready pieces, stage, audio, film scripts – everything welcome!
Members’ news Congratulations to Robert Cohen whose new novel Architecture for Beginners has just been published. www.waterstones.com/book/architecture-for-beginners/robert-cohen/9781914322143
Robert will be reading from and discussing his new novel at the April meeting.
Congratulations to Judy Upton whose Sussex set mystery thriller ‘Sniff Them Out, Brownlow!’ www.waterstones.com/book/sniff-them-out-brownlow/judy-upton/9781914322136 has a lovely review in the new issue of Ingenue Magazine p68 www.ingenuemagazine.co.uk/
Meeting details
Sunday March 5th 7-9pm
New Venture Theatre
Bedford Place
Brighton
BN1 2PT
In the bar as usual
Free to Sussex Playwrights members
Guests and friends: £3 on the door – includes wine/juice
February meeting
We read and discussed two extracts from plays in progress:
The Big Interview by John Laurenson
and
Shillingworth by Dave Patchett
A little cracker for the Christmas holidays
October 2022 meeting news
September 2022 meeting report
October meeting – October 2nd 2022 7-9 pm:
All are welcome to attend our October meeting.
We’re inviting you to bring along your short two-hander pieces for reading on the night. Work in progress, performance-ready pieces, stage, audio, film scripts – everything welcome!
Sunday October 2nd 7-9pm
New Venture Theatre
Bedford Place
Brighton
BN1 2PT
In the bar as usual
Free to Sussex Playwrights members
Guests and friends £3 – includes wine/juice/nibbles
September meeting report – Members’ and visitors’ latest
Adrian Jameson of The Other Realm horror Theatre Company, is appearing in A Triptych of Wrath 22/23 October at Horror Fest, [14th to the 23rd of October], based around the Wellington and the Poets. More at https://www.facebook.com/btnhorrorfest
Robert Cohen, actor and writer of solo shows has his first novel Architecture for Beginners published by Hobart books. Robert is appearing in Sussex Playwrights’ friend Christine Foster’s play Lost in the Willows, on the life of Kenneth Grahame, from the 5th of October at the Rialto Theatre then a short tour. He’s also about to appear at the Rialto in Who Is Number One, a new play on the making of The Prisoner by Brian Mitchell and Joseph Nixon [of The Shark is Broken’], happening from mid October – news to come. https://www.rialtotheatre.co.uk/whats-on
John, a writer who has written his first comedy play, a two hander comedy, is looking for a Captain Mainwaring-esque character actor.
Philippa and Thomas have written and presented drama workshops for the New Venture Theatre and Reigate Theatre
Jenny Rowe, writer, actor and improv tutor presenting improvisation classes for actors in the region [also highly recommended for writers]
Honorary vice-president Judy Upton has a new novel out – Sniff Them Out, Brownlow, the adventures of pet detective Sophie Gorridge and sniffer dog Brownlow
Also welcomed Sophie, a writer from the arts magazine Monk and Bernard, film production director painter and actor
Wide ranging conversation covered:
Discussing venues for presenting new work in Brighton [the Poets venue was recommended], the concept of an experimental free fringe, how established venues are attracting an audience, the business of selling tickets for rehearsed readings and works in progress, frustrations around the Brighton Fringe ticket booking system, attracting donations via PayPal, writing workshops, Sussex Playwrights’ publishing plans, Brighton festival podcasts, taking shows to Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh venues and accommodation [what should one take?!], the heavyweight impression often given that Edinburgh is a comedy festival – is it even worth doing Theatre there, and is the BBC compliant in this image? How writers get discovered by the BBC, the route to stand-up comedians taking shows to Edinburgh, being ‘discovered’ then going on to write and appear in TV sitcoms … A lot covered in a two hour meeting!
