September’s meeting
September 4th 2016 Meeting
Latest from our guest, producer Simon Moorhead
Simon’s audio project, an anthology series of thirteen half hour audio dramas made in Brighton using entirely Brighton-based actors is well underway at the Brighton Road Studio just north of Patcham. The dramas are now in postproduction and sound design.
One of the most exciting and positive developments for Brighton writers and actors in a long time! We’ll keep you posted and Simon will be with us at the October meeting.
Committee news
Chair Philippa Hammond – casting and appearing in the online dramas at the moment,
Tony Briginshaw – Submission to Papatango New Writing – “The Greed Assizes”. Their comment: ‘Thank you for the opportunity to read your play. You have imagined a fascinating world here where those at fault for the financial crash are held to account. The political discourse in your play is sharp and interesting and shows real intellectual rigour. My note to you as you continue to work on your play would be to find the personal within the political – I found myself wishing I knew more about these characters as people, rather than just as political ideals. Again, I enjoyed reading your piece and wish you the very best of luck for the future.’
Rose Collis: New one-woman play ‘Wanting the Moon’, written and performed by Rose Collis, directed by Keith Drinkel, has its first London run in September at the Bread & Roses Theatre London SW4. Rose will be with us at the October meeting to discuss the play.
Trevor Harvey – Jasper Publishing which has supplied plays and pantomimes for am dram socities from around 60 or 70 writers over about the past twenty years, has recently been ‘dissolved’. There has also been an issue with payment for the last few performances. So don’t send scripts for Jasper Publishing consideration!
A five-minute play sketch TELLING TALES, for young school children to read, is to be reprinted by an Australian educational publishers (it has previously been in a couple of UK classroom textbooks from Heinemann and Scholastic.)
Judy Upton – one of the winners in this year’s Croydon Warehouse International Playwriting competition. Two of her scripts have been recorded by Simon’s company, now in post production. A ten minute comedy she was asked to write for the Bread and Roses, Clapham, will be performed there on the week of November first. Long listed with a full length play for the recent Papatango prize out of 1053 entries.
Notifications – Brighton and beyond
Message from France: Raymond Ager agerray@gmail.com, former NVT member
‘I love the 10-minute format but there isn’t much available in French. Do you have any scripts available that the author would be happy to have translated into French for readings and possible performance by an amateur group?
Ian uploaded the NVT 10 min festival plays & contact details to dropbox – ‘That’s wonderful, I couldn’t have expected more, thank you so much! It’s very good timing, although almost everything here shuts down for the summer holiday period, my actor friend who has helped with some translation is free next week, so I’ll have a read through and select some to translate, ready for theatre group restarting in Sept.
… France is a market for 10-minute plays. While there a lot of ‘sketches’ available, I’ve found hardly anything written in French in the same style as the ’10-minute play’. I’m working towards organising a reading a bit later in the year, probably Oct/Nov time and will let you know how things work out. ‘
Message from Moscow: Martin Williams – He’s launching a new literary magazine. Aims to showcase new and aspiring authors as well as providing entertaining stories for an international readership. The work will initially be published in Russia (it will also include work in Russian), although also aims to publish in some other markets including the UK. Submissions will not initially be paid, although we will be offering monthly prizes for the best work as voted for by the readers. All work included will be illustrated by our in-house artists and authors will have the option to be included on our website if they would like to use the magazine to raise their profile. There is also the possibility that we may be able to include some features about authors in the hard copy of the magazine.’
1) Short stories: 250 – 5000 words long, suitable for a broad range of readers.
2) Poems: Up to 42 lines, with the same content guidelines as the short stories.
Explicit language, subjects or political content is very unlikely to be published
Martin Williams <thefabler@hotmail.com> Up to you if you would like to submit to an unpaid project, of course!
For your diary – Coming up:
Monday October 3rd: Shooters in the Pub Brighton – 6.30 at Duke’s at Komedia Bar
Free film makers’ meetup night – writers, actors, directors, producers, crew … all welcome, just turn up and talk film.
Competition news
We’re receiving entries to the Sussex Playwrights Constance Cox Playwriting Competition 2016.
London Playwrights have featured the competition on their website
Former BBC Scriptreader and producer with B7 Productions and The Tablet Book Company, Simon Moorhead is reading scripts and has offered some practical guidance.