Box office: 020 7978 7040
Intended for playwrights who feel they have a grip on the basics and want to further hone their skills. Over the course we will explore how we can push and develop our ideas, add to our playwriting toolkit and learn how to redraft more efficiently and effectively. There’ll be writing exercises, plays to read (between the sessions) and lots to talk about.
Dates/Times: Tuesday’s, 7pm – 9:30pm. 7th January, 14th January, 21st January, 28th January and 4th February.
Running time of each workshop: 2.5 hours – delivered online via Zoom. Maximum class sizes are 16. A portion of spaces have been reserved for Share the Drama places.
Session One – Tuesday 7th January 2025 – Character – learning from your characters; developing backstory that feels real rather than convenient; wants, needs and what else?; sharpening choices and intentions; how characters can operate in different styles of theatre.
Session Two – Tuesday 14th January 2025 – Structure – planning versus splurging; traditional structures as tools rather than prescriptions; when a character note is actually a structure note; characters leading plot rather than plot leading characters.
Session Three – Tuesday 21st January 2025 – Space – what your play looks like; how the use of space can affect the drama; the presence of the audience.
Session Four – Tuesday 28th January 2025 – Dialogue and Action – how our scenes stay active; the tricks and tactics that characters use to get what they want; the relationship between language, tone, rhythm and shape.
Session Five – Tuesday 4th February 2025 – Surgery – an opportunity to bring problems to the group – what we’re stuck on, what we’re worried about, where we’re lost.
Theatre503’s Playwriting Courses are bespoke to the individual practitioners. They are now all being pitched to an advanced level, where participants will be expected to have at least some experience of the basic areas of playwriting craft, even if they have not yet written a full length play. All of the expected areas of craft will be covered by each practitioner but how those practitioners engage with those areas may differ from course to course. Please see the individual course breakdown above for more information.
Thanks to our Share The Drama scheme, we want to make sure those of you who are struggling in the current climate can still take part in our Writers Programme. If you would like to book a Share The Drama bursary for the Writer’s Programme, please call our box office on 02079787040.
Please note the discounted share the drama bursary places are now sold out, but there are still further full price slots available
If you have any access requirements, you can let us know by contacting filling out the Google Form linked here or contacting Theatre503 via our Writers’ Programme email, writersprogramme@theatre503.com or by calling 02079787040. You can view what we currently are able to offer on our Accessibility page.
Brad Birch
Brad Birch is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Mid Wales. His work has been produced in the UK, USA, Japan, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy and Malta. In 2016, he was awarded the Harold Pinter Commission at the Royal Court. His plays are published by Methuen Drama and his first anthology, Plays One, was published in 2018.
Plays include: Falkland Sound; Missing People; Black Mountain; The Brink; Gardening for the Unfulfilled and Alienated; and Tender Bolus.
He is currently writing feature films for Film4, Meduza Meduza, Escape Plan and Duck Soup.
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