After the reading she realised she hadn't really added anything to the original so she decided to re-write it, imagining scenes that could have happened but weren't explicit in the original fairy-tale, adding her own slant to the story at the same time: so rather than being all sweetness and light, Cinderella developed a darker side, manipulating her step-sister into handing over her invitation by threatening to reveal the latter's pregnancy, and the relationship between Cinderella and her step-mother became more three-dimensional as they sat like wall-flowers at the ball, forced into conversation through a need to communicate, and ending up discussing the death of Cinderella's birth-mother.
As this intensive re-writing process began, each writer spent time with the actors and one of the directing team, reading and discussing the plays. Some of the pieces, like Ruth Jackson's surreal pirate tale A Guy, a Girl and a Hat Stand, were ready to be staged. Others, like David Jackson's moving and intense story of two brothers living rough on the streets of London, Somewhere But Nowhere, was still quite unstructured and also far too long. David also some issues with time keeping, but the team were committed to encouraging him to continue working on his piece, refining the dialogue and editing out the repetition.
All the writers found the process of working with professional actors useful in their own way. Some used them to improvise scenes, which they then scripted. Others found it more beneficial to have the actors work from the script, highlighting areas of misunderstanding.
By Friday morning each writer had had the equivalent of half a day with the actors working on their plays. Now we began the process of knitting the pieces together into a show. Each writer had been asked to bring in some music as a soundtrack for their play, and as their piece was technically rehearsed, each had the opportunity to discuss with the director how the piece was staged and lit. Our technical director gave each piece it's own individual lighting design, and as the actors would be script-in-hand, the decision was made to keep props to a minimum.
The show on Friday was, by all accounts, hugely successful. Each writer had produced work to be proud of, and our well-known team of actors were really impressed by the standard of the writing. The programme notes had been supplied by the writers themselves, and then assimilated by our assistant director. A healthy number of family and friends showed up to support the writers and see some really exciting work.
Read on...