WA Event: The Day of the Playwright

3 November, 2014

Informative, provocative and inspirational - the Day of the Playwright will explore the craft of writing for performance through a series of workshops and panels.

Participants will have the opportunity to work with some of Australia’s most talented writers, including Andrew Bovell (The Secret River, When the Rain Stops Falling, Speaking in Tongues), Jane Bodie (Music, Hinterland, This Years Ashes), Declan Greene (Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, Moth, L.A Pompeii) and Kate Mulvany (Jasper Jones, The Seed, Masquerade) and to hear from some of WA’s exciting new voices in theatre.

“If you want to write, the Day of the Playwright will show you how to begin. If you have already begun, it will remind you of why you wanted to write in the first place.” said Andrew Bovell.

The day begins with a playwrights’ panel, exploring why they write for the theatre, what excites them about it and what do they think it’s capable of.

Participants can then choose two workshops:

Jane Bodie will explore the possibilities of structure - the how and potentially when to make the crucial structural decisions. Looking at the function of time, space, location and genre, alongside which scenes will truly tell the story you want to tell in the most dramatic way.

The workshop with Declan Greene examines collaborative means of generating text with performers and creatives; recording, editing, discarding material; structuring activities for the rehearsal room; and creating alternative systems of dramaturgy.

As a playwright who draws foremost on her life, Kate Mulvany will share lessons and techniques on creating stories out of the lived experience, so we can continue to map not only our own personal experiences, but the stories of our society.

Andrew Bovell recently called on writers to think big, to decide on the story you want to tell and to be bold in the telling. His workshop is about identifying the ideas that matter to you and the process of building a dramatic concept around those ideas.

The workshops will have up to ten participants, and will run for two hours. (You will be asked your workshop preferences when registering.)

After the workshops, there will be a panel with WA’s emerging new writers. Gita Bezard, Will O'Mahony, Liz Newell and Ian Sinclair will discuss what WA writers are talking about, how they approach writing for performance and whether theatre is a dead medium or a new frontier.

The day’s program will conclude with a general Q&A with participants, then everyone is invited to the PICA Bar for drinks and nibbles.

WHEN:  Saturday 22 November 2014 9:00am - 6:00pm

WHERE:  AWG/Stages 266 William Street Northbridge, and nearby workshop venues.

COST:  $125 for AWG and Stages Members; $175 for Non-Members; $105 for Students

For the full program schedule and booking details, click here.