Our six-week spring season starts this Tuesday, 19 March, in W! at Watershed, 1 Canon’s Road, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5TX. All our upcoming meetings are happening in the same place — ask at Watershed’s box office if you need directions to W1.
Check the date, time and location of our next meeting in the panel on the right beneath the slideshow on our website’s home page, and find a list of forthcoming dates on the site’s What’s On page. Everyone attending meetings pays £1.
Tuesday, 19 March at 7.30pm: Crossing the Line by Kate Stonham
Kate’s rewritten her 45-minute radio drama following feedback from the group, and is giving the latest version an airing tonight. The action centres on a retired cleaner whose cruise in the Indian Ocean makes an unexpected detour.
Tuesday, 26 March at 7.30pm: Connect Four by Amy Evans
Amy’s seeking feedback on her full-length stage play for a final polish before its production at Bristol’s Bierkeller Theatre from 5-9 May: Rose and Ciaran are married. Nate and the Girl are not in this world. When Rose and Ciaran are forced to move in with Ciaran’s parents, politics, family history, class and generational gaps come to the fore. Nate and the Girl haunt them as shadows of the unresolved. From ’90s Belfast to noughties London, there is a possibility that the bonds of love and family can connect these four very different people.
Tuesday, 2 April at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 9 April at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 16 April at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 23 April at 7.30pm: Mumbo Jumbo by John Colborn
John’s new 90-minute stage play centres on a man with a terminal illness. Please arrive promptly for the meeting because the protagonist may not have much time…
South Gloucestershire backs Brass Works Theatre
South Gloucestershire Council gave its backing to the region’s first professional theatre arts venue earlier this month with the award of a small revenue grant to help continue work at Brass Works Theatre in Warmley.
Adrian Harris, Brass Works Theatre’s founder and artistic director (and Southwest Scriptwriters committee member), plans to use the grant to build on last year’s pioneering productions of his own original World War II drama, Engineers’ Blue, staged last July, and the venue’s Christmas show, Bruce Fellows’ quirky adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Mystery of the Hound of the Baskervilles — Southwest Scriptwriters helped develop both scripts.
The Scriptwriters connection continues with Brass Works Theatre’s next presentation when it hosts the quick-fire improvised comedy company Instant Wit — led by group executive member Stephanie Weston — for a show on Saturday, 27 April.
Later this spring, Brass Works Theatre will open Bristol’s Shakespeare Festival with a production of Macbeth.
Book tickets soon for Instant Wit’s unique brand of made-up-on-the-spot mayhem (£11/£10), and watch out for upcoming Brass Works Theatre events at www.brassworkstheatre.com.
BBC writersroom and BOV open windows of opportunity
BBC writersroom — the Corporation’s portal for aspiring scriptwriters — moved from a rolling programme of unsolicited script acceptance early last year to its new Script Room initiative, for which it invites writers to submit work for stage, screen, radio and TV during windows of opportunity in the spring and autumn.
Your latest chance to send a script to Auntie closes at 5pm on Thursday, 28 March:
‘As always we are looking for an authentic writer’s voice, powerful ideas, vivid worlds, well-told stories, engaging characters, memorable scripts, and talent and potential in the writer.’
The writersroom team will identify the writers of greatest promise in this submission round for the Script Room Selection, which will have access to writing masterclasses and mentoring from the team, as well as opportunities to build relationships within BBC Drama, Comedy, Radio, Children’s and Film.
In a similar move, Bristol Old Vic’s Literary Department has launched The Open Session, an annual initiative in which it will accept unsolicited script submissions from South West-based writers.
BOV’s submission window starts on Saturday, 1 June and concludes at 5pm on Sunday, 30 June, with scripts arriving outside these times subject to BOV’s usual policy of nonacceptance of unsolicited work.
‘We are delighted to be further developing our conversations with South West writing talent,’ writes Sharon Clark, BOV’s Literary Producer. ‘As such we will be selecting a small group of writers whose submissions get our pulses racing the most, working with them to develop a bespoke package of development involving conversations which could lead to commissioning opportunities here at Old Vic Towers.’
Find us and follow us for more…
Soho Theatre will be launching its biannual Verity Bargate Award soon. Although the Company has not released full details at the time of writing, we’ll bring you news of this high-profile opportunity via our social media feeds when the news breaks.
Our new media profiles also feature details of productions in which members are involved, including Adrian Harris’ appearances as awkward ambulance man Norman Burnton in BBC One’s Casualty.
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