While pre-production for On Time barrels along, I'm also working on a show with the working title of Three Women. This will certainly not be the finished title, but it works right now because it's about three women.
I've written a lot of short plays - mostly inspired by the opportunities offered by the Short & Sweet Festivals, and the fact I've been produced a couple of times there. And, like short films, ten-minute plays can really get to the heart of a character or situation and tell strong, short stories.
Having written On Time for Richard - the first time I've written a one-person show, I wanted to write a couple of one-woman pieces. This led to me writing two short plays, "Poems a Dead Boy Wrote" and "Like a House on Fire". The first was read at Melbourne Theatre Collective and the second at the Cold Reading Series - and both got really strong reactions. Admittedly, "Poems" got a more sombre reaction - because it's a heavy dramatic piece. "Fire" got lots of laughs and huge applause at the end.
After the reading of "Fire", I had three female actors approach me wanting to perform the play; one actor in particular wanted to film it for her show reel and later ended up using it as an audition piece for another Fringe Festival show.
Of course, if I was going to do "Fire", they couldn't all perform it, so I offered "Poems" to Christine and "Fire" to Renee and then we went away to discuss how we'd turn those two small pieces into a night of theatre. The answer? Write a third piece for another actor - and then workshop a play where all three characters meet.
I like the challenge of finding three vastly different characters in a room together just to see how they will react to each other. These were all written as separate pieces - the third is recently finished and titled, "Lady M" - with no thought to the second half of the Three Women show.
Now, with three pieces and three actors to perform them, we are actively looking for a space to perform the show and I'm starting to mull over how these women might meet and what happens next.
Stay tuned.
I've written a lot of short plays - mostly inspired by the opportunities offered by the Short & Sweet Festivals, and the fact I've been produced a couple of times there. And, like short films, ten-minute plays can really get to the heart of a character or situation and tell strong, short stories.
Having written On Time for Richard - the first time I've written a one-person show, I wanted to write a couple of one-woman pieces. This led to me writing two short plays, "Poems a Dead Boy Wrote" and "Like a House on Fire". The first was read at Melbourne Theatre Collective and the second at the Cold Reading Series - and both got really strong reactions. Admittedly, "Poems" got a more sombre reaction - because it's a heavy dramatic piece. "Fire" got lots of laughs and huge applause at the end.
After the reading of "Fire", I had three female actors approach me wanting to perform the play; one actor in particular wanted to film it for her show reel and later ended up using it as an audition piece for another Fringe Festival show.
Of course, if I was going to do "Fire", they couldn't all perform it, so I offered "Poems" to Christine and "Fire" to Renee and then we went away to discuss how we'd turn those two small pieces into a night of theatre. The answer? Write a third piece for another actor - and then workshop a play where all three characters meet.
I like the challenge of finding three vastly different characters in a room together just to see how they will react to each other. These were all written as separate pieces - the third is recently finished and titled, "Lady M" - with no thought to the second half of the Three Women show.
Now, with three pieces and three actors to perform them, we are actively looking for a space to perform the show and I'm starting to mull over how these women might meet and what happens next.
Stay tuned.
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