![]() “This is what is pissing me off” Jane Doe, The Guardian. Just put it in speech marks to make it look official. It doesn’t have to be swanky you can even write it yourself. Something that gets to the crux of what is pissing you off. Now, jump down an internet rabbit hole, buy books, read articles, listen to podcasts with one aim, find a quote. The thing that makes your teeth clench every time you hear about it.Ī few years ago, I found out the biggest killer of young men was suicide. What is really getting on your nerves? What makes you react every time you hear about it? Try to be really specific about it though, if everything is an issue – nothing is. And to access it, you can ask yourself a really simple question. I’d figured no one wanted to see the play about a drama student who was broke, so I’d have to write about something I didn’t know.īut actually, I see now that the phrase isn’t necessarily about your specific circumstance or experience, it is about the emotion of the situation you find yourself in. My Mum passed on the phrase “Write about what you know” to me, she isn’t a writer, but she was trying to encourage me when I was failing to write anything. ![]() Open a new document, and call it “New play” The point where you are going to write a new play. Get rid of the insecurities, the agents you wrote to that rejected you, the people who didn’t like your work, the auditions you didn’t get, the schools who said no, get rid of all that, just write the things that have got you to this point. What was the first play you saw? What is the best play? The best performance, the best moment? Write down all the things that got you to think theatre is what you think it is. A short essay on why you are where you are. Play name, in italics then open brackets, name of the theatre, the tour, the company, the festival. Write it all, every project you’re proud of, or were part of, every stage you’ve written for, acted on, everything you directed, designed or produced, every chance you have had to be part of something live. But make a cup of tea first – I’m not an animal! If you wait to see how this story is told, it will have already happened. Good God that pandemic led to some great art though – that’s us!Īnd that’ll be the legacy if we get it right. We are the generation of artists that come out of this, that get people back into theatres, that’s our job. We have to rebuild our community, our industry, and we have to encourage and support the work it creates. We have to move on together, with speed, urgency and with determination. In thirty years, we can count the personal scars left by this pandemic. ![]() The dream that we’d be in a theatre again one day, watching something that would hit us. Or the stories we could watch in our homes. Humanity, contact, love.Īrt saved us too, in a way. Science just saved us, but art was what we lost. ![]() Kieran is the Royal Exchange Local Exchange Artist on Attachment and was Longlisted for the 2019 Bruntwood Prize for WILT which would have opened last year at Theatre by the Lake. This week Kieran Knowles checks in with us on the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and exercises to get back to writing. ![]() We truly hope that this series of on-line workshops – will inspire and support you to be creative and to find new possibilities for your work to be realised. Whether you have been able to be creative or not, we want to try and find ways to support you to continue to be engaged with the craft of writing for performance, engaging with an audience, telling stories and taking people on journeys. That is why we are always striving to find ways to support playwrights and encourage people to have the courage to write. That is a remarkable endeavour and a huge responsibility – something for which we all have the utmost respect and admiration at the Bruntwood Prize. This continues to be a tremendously difficult time for theatre and the artists who make it. If we are going to recover from the experiences of the past 12 months, we are going to need playwrights. It is important that we bring compassion and understanding to the situation we find ourselves in. ![]()
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