Our March into April 2020 meetings have moveable weekdays and meeting rooms, so please make careful notes of the dates and locations in your diary or check our What’s on page for details.
All our upcoming sessions are at Bristol Old Vic, King Street, BS1 4ED. Everyone attending pays £2.
Meetings cancelled due to COVID-19 emergency
All our meetings are cancelled for the time being with the closure of Bristol Old Vic due to the coronavirus emergency. We encourage you to keep healthy and keep writing throughout the current difficulties. We’ll be back when it’s safe to meet again.
We’ve preserved our planned programme below to show what might have been…
Monday, 16 March at 8pm in the Coopers’ Loft: Vengeance is Mine by Brian Weaving *** Meeting cancelled ***
Sign in at reception between the main entrance and the box office, and take the lift directly to the Çoopers’ Loft on the top floor. Please ask Bristol Old Vic staff if you need directions to the meeting.
Brian’s stage play, Vengeance is Mine, is set in a police station and concerns a missing child.
Wednesday, 25 March at 8pm in the Rehearsal Room: Happy by Charlotte Souter *** Meeting cancelled ***
Sign in at reception between the main entrance and the box office, and gather ahead of 8pm to go to the Rehearsal Room together.
In Charlotte’s full-length stage play, Harry lives in a world in which everyone is happy. He has a tracker that tells him how happy he is. But when his reading starts to fall, he is sent on a journey to find out why…
Tuesday, 7 April at 8pm in the Coopers’ Loft: Open Workshop *** Meeting cancelled ***
Back to our regular weekday and meeting place for our first April session. Please access the meeting as directed for 16 March above.
Tonight’s open workshop includes Joe Ralley’s screenplay, Healing, a short, dramatic story about a young psychiatrist trying to treat a uniquely challenging patient while undergoing therapy himself.
We have room for more work in progress this evening — get in touch using our Book a workshop slot form to reserve time for your work to be read.
Stephanie’s library bookings
Group committee member Stephanie Weston has scripts presented at library events in Bristol and London this month.
The first of these was last Saturday, 7 March, when Stephanie performed two of her monoogues at Clifton Library as part of A Word in Your Ear’s Story Saturday.
Stephanie’s London library outing is next Thursday, 19 March, when Optik Theatre is giving her 20-minute play Reach for the Stars a fully-staged, script-in-hand performance at Richmond Library. The presentation is part of Optik’s The Script Room showcase, and Reach for the Stars scored with the company after Stephanie received feedback on it at a group meeting last year.
Steve’s Small Talk at INK 2020
Steve Lambert’s short play Small Talk, featured in our Scratch Nights II event last March, is one of 40 scripts selected from over 750 submissions for performance in this year’s INK Festival at The Cut arts centre in Helensworth, Suffolk.
Exploring the conversation of office smokers outside on the pavement, Small Talk sparks up throughout the Festival, which runs from 17 to 19 April.
From Page to Stage at Redland Library
Friends of Redland Library is hosting a panel discussion at the library in Whiteladies Road on Thursday, 26 March, focussing on books that have been adapted for the theatre.
The panelists are: Dr Katja Krebs, Senior Lecturer in Performance and Theatre Studies at Bristol University; the playwright, producer and scriptwriting lecturer at the University of the West of England and Oxford, Shaun McCarthy; Professor Elaine M Mcgirr, the University of Bristol’s Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies; and Bristol Grammar School Drama and Theatre Studies teacher, Louis Mckenzie.
Join the discussion at 7pm on 26 March. Admission is £3 on the door.
Playwriting Masterclass at Theatre Royal, Bath
Playwright Kate Attwell, whose play Testmatch is being performed at the Ustinov from 2 April until 9 May, is giving a Playwriting Masterclass at Theatre Royal, Bath, on Saturday, 4 April from 11am to 5pm.
The masterclass is suitable for writers at all levels of experience and will engage participants in the process of writing, rewriting and reading a script, discussing and appraising each other’s work.
The course fee of £30.50 includes a ticket for Testmatch.