We begin our early autumn season of meetings this Tuesday, 11 September, at our new regular venue; the function room upstairs at the Famous Royal Naval Volunteer pub, 17-18 King Street, BS1 4EE. Ask at the bar when buying a drink for directions to the meeting. Everyone attending meetings pays £1.

Tuesday, 11 September 2007 at 7.30pm: Character Creation with Andy Graham

Creating fully-dimensional characters for stage or screen is one of the most difficult tasks facing aspirant writers. Southwest Scriptwriters’ chair Andy Graham offers some thoughts on character development and leads a simple and enjoyable exercise to create a new character from scratch. Bring a pen and some paper along as it will be a practical session from the start.

Tuesday, 18 September 2007 at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 25 September 2007 at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 2 October 2007 at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 9 October 2007 at 7.30pm: Open Workshop
Tuesday, 16 October 2007 at 7.30pm: Open Workshop

 

Theatre West’s Autumn Season at the Alma Tavern

Theatre West’s Tenth Anniversary Season at the Alma Tavern starts on 18 September and runs until 24 November. The programme kicks off with a revamped version of Holding Hands with Angels by Mike Akers, which was the company’s debut production at the Alma a decade ago. The opening show runs until 29 September and is followed by Mary Mary, written by Southwest Scriptwriter Shiona Morton, playing at the Alma from 2 to 13 October.

For details of all the plays in Theatre West’s 2007 autumn season, visit the company’s website.

 

Digital Shorts 2007/2008

South West Screen and the UK Film Council in association with Aardman Animations, the Engine Room and PVA MediaLab are seeking to commission up to nine innovative short film ideas from individuals based in the South West who are interested in exploring new approaches to digital format.

The partner organisations are seeking to support a mix of shorts of no more than ten minutes from individuals based in the South West with budgets of no more than £10,000. Any genre will be considered although ideas which are suitable for a range of distribution platforms are most likely to succeed.

Follow in the footsteps of Bill Maryon, who directed his script Meeting for last year’s Digital Shorts.

 

Stephen Volk in conversation with Eileen Elsey for Cinéformation at the Watershed, Bristol

Cinéformation presents an exclusive screenwriting event in association with the University of the West of England with Stephen Volk, BAFTA-winning screenwriter of feature films and TV dramas including Ken Russell’s Gothic,the notorious BBC Halloween night “hoax” Ghostwatch, and the psycho-horror road-movie Octane.

He will be discussing his work in the horror/paranormal genre and his experiences as a screenwriter in both the UK and the USA. The evening will focus on the production and development of his recent success, the multi-award winning ITV1 drama series Afterlife, which starred Lesley Sharp and Andrew Lincoln and was shot in and around Bristol.

Eileen Elsey runs the MA Screenwriting at the Faculty of Creative Arts, The University of the West of England.

The event is free, and takes place on Thursday, 27 October at 7-9.30pm at the Watershed, The Harbourside, Bristol.

 

Destination Freedom by Anna Farthing

Congratulations to Anna Farthing whose play Destination Freedom was performed at the International Slavery Museum in the Maritime Museum at Albert Dock, Liverpool, from 28 August to 2 September. A two-hander based on the narrative of William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles to Freedom, the story concerns fugitive slaves, their escape from Georgia to the free North and their eventual arrival in Liverpool. The play and production also form part of Anna’s practice-based PhD submission, which concerns the potential of participatory and performance drama for difficult and sensitive histories in museums.