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PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS Premier’s English Literature Scholarship Drama and playwriting for young people in the UK Ned Manning Newtown High School of the Performing Arts Sponsored by PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS At a recent meeting of Australian playwrights there was a discussion about why the playwrights present chose to write for the theatre. Their answers were instructive. The need to have a ‘voice’, to have a means of expression that reflected the writer’s interests and concerns was universally agreed upon as a fundamental reason to write for the theatre. What was really interesting was just how different these voices were, as different as the collection of writers themselves. Their different voices reflected their sex, their age and their nationality as much as their particular interests. Not only was content affected by these factors but so too were form and style. It was agreed that one of the attractions of writing for the theatre was that the theatre is a broad church, at its best catering for a wide range of voices. Finding this voice can be seen as a starting point for the playwright. Realising it, bringing it to life, involves the playwright in a process of collaboration. For a play is nothing without the input of a director, performers, designers and finally an audience. It is the involvement, the active participation, of the latter that creates the unique magic that is theatre. Being a contributor to this magic as a playwright is not the preserve of any particular social grouping. It should take place in every school and community in the country. All that is needed is imagination and a space to express that imagination. The National Theatre in London produces a Youth Theatre Program called Shell Connections. This initiative produces new writing about, and for, young people. It involves nearly 200 schools and young theatre companies across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The National commissions 10 plays from the hottest writers in the country. Each school or youth company then chooses one of these plays to perform at their home venue. The best of these are then showcased regionally at a local theatre company venue. This festival of Young People’s Theatre culminates in the selection of participants for a weeklong festival at the National’s home on South Bank. Hence young people from all over the United Kingdom and Ireland have the opportunity to perform in front of wildly enthusiastic audiences on the main stages of the National Theatre. Shell Connections involves thousands of young people performing in plays written specifically for them. It connects the National Theatre with artists and audiences of the future while introducing young people to the immediacy and power of the theatre. It is an exciting and far reaching initiative. It is an example of the strong relationship between theatre companies and communities in the United Kingdom, a relationship that extends to developing the young person’s voice in the theatre. The Young Vic was established to introduce young people to the potential of theatre and to educate them in its practice. While the Young Vic tends to focus on the classics, its whole raison d’etre is to connect with the community in general and young people in particular. Theatre is seen as a means of self expression, as a way for young people to let their imaginations run free and to investigate the world around them. The Young Vic is surrounded by one of the most disadvantaged areas in Britain. It is an area of cultural and ethnic diversity. The Young Vic’s founders were committed to theatre that was inclusive, that was cheap and affordable, and that would appeal to the community. The style of production is aimed to include the audiences, to make them feel part of the process. This involved work that was challenging and, at times, confronting. The idea was to pursue the notion of theatre as belonging to, and representative of, the people. For young people this PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS involves participating in the processes of actually making theatre as much as dealing with whatever issues and ideas were raised in the particular work. The Young Vic’s connection with youth and community is systemic. It runs through the whole company and involves every production mounted at the theatre. At its core is the belief that young people are quick to recognise phoniness and have an immediate, unselfconscious response to theatre. One interesting program run by the Young Vic involves bringing young people into the theatre to become involved in all aspects of a particular production, not merely as observers but as participants. This resulted in parallel productions being mounted by the young people that reflected their individual responses to the production. As these responses reflected their cultural, ethnic and social backgrounds they often threw new light on the work being performed. This hands on approach is all about involving young people in the mechanics of theatre in a practical rather than theoretical way. An extension of this philosophy is at the core of the Royal Court’s Young Writer’s Programme. The Royal Court is a theatre established to showcase new writing. It is committed to encouraging writing from all sections of the community. It promotes work that is challenging and exciting, work that reflects the ‘problems and possibilities of our times’. It is also committed to attracting new audiences and young audiences to the theatre. The Young Writer’s Programme involves playwrights and playwrighting tutors working with young people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. They are encouraged to find their own distinctive voices and to give expression to them through writing for the theatre. The program offers courses for three different age groups, 13 to 16, 17 to 20 and 21 to 25. There is also a program called Connections which is aimed at 16 to 19 year olds who are unemployed and without any education. In these programs, a playwright works with the groups over a minimum 10-week period. This means young writers are working with theatre practitioners who are still actively involved in professional theatre. The methodology each tutor employs to teaching playwrighting, the nuts and bolts of the process, is likely to be different for each tutor, for there are as many approaches to the teaching of playwrighting as there are playwrights. However, there are some general principles that apply to the courses on offer at the Royal Court. The older groups, the 17- to 25-year-olds, might be asked to read a play weekly and to discuss pertinent matters arising from the reading, matters of form, content and style. They will look at characterisation and staging. They will discuss the nature of theatricality and use the plays they are reading to investigate the world of the theatre. These are universal matters all playwrights must deal with and having practicing playwrights as tutors means there is a high level of appreciation of the difficulties which arise when writing for the stage. Whatever shape they make take, writing exercises will be given out as a means of introducing the writers to writing for theatre, getting started exercises, perhaps in which the writers write a scene with one character in one location and with one motivation. The writers might be asked to articulate what they want from the course. What they want (as writers) at the end of a week, the end of a year, the end of a lifetime! Another tutor might ask the writers to talk about themselves, to discuss what excites them or frustrates them. These are examples of the many varied approaches to beginning the process. With the younger groups, the 13- to 16-year-olds, there might be more emphasis on playing drama games and developing scenes out of those games. They might record a conversation and use this as a starting point for a scene. They might be given two PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS characters in a location with different motivations and be asked to write a scene from that. The tutors might be younger too. The Connections Programme provides scribes so that writers with literacy problems are still able to express themselves. Having been given a few fundamental signposts for theatre writing, the writer dictates the dialogue to a scribe. A tutor guides this process ensuring the writer’s voice is heard. Schools and further education and university programs run by the Royal Court follow a similar model, with practicing artists acting as tutors and working with the teachers and students. A teacher of 13 to 16 year olds might be paired with a playwright and a director who will then guide the class through writing exercises and workshopping. There are long-term projects in place which culminate in presentations of the students’ work by professional actors and directors. There are also in service programs for teachers on directing new writing and teaching playwrighting. The Soho Writer’s Theatre is committed to developing and producing new playwrighting. Soho Young Writers is the youth arm of the company. Soho Young Writers is open to playwrights aged between 15 and 25 and consists of a number of stages. At the end of each stage playwrights are chosen to move on to a more advanced level, thus providing some continuity for aspiring playwrights to develop their craft. As at the Royal Court, practicing playwrights run the courses and, while the teaching methodology may differ from tutor to tutor, certain principles still apply. Central to this is the involvement of professional artists on all levels of the creative process. This means there is a working relationship between the profession and teaching institutions and community groups. This interaction is encouraged and there is no sense that ‘education programs’ exist in isolation or are regarded as any way inferior to Main Stage work. Similarly there is a commitment to areas of social disadvantage, to use playwrighting as a means of engaging these communities in the world of the theatre. In Hackney, for instance, this involved a project looking at the area’s history. It brought together people of all ages who had lived in the area and who had witnessed first-hand the changing social demographic. Questions such as: who settled the area 400 years ago, why did people move into the area at different periods of history, how multiculturalism took shape, were posited. A playwright and director conducted workshops, then created a show which was performed at the Soho Writer’s Theatre. This is part of Soho’s Community Based Outreach Programme, which is essentially a collaboration with a particular community. Other programs have involved young carers, youth workers and women’s groups. Black History Month brings together old and young to swap stories. This year the focus was on comparing being a young African American in 2004 and being a young African American in 1954 with a piece of theatre being created from the ensuing workshops. Sohos’s Taster Workshops are six-hour introductory workshops open to anyone 15 years and older. Again run by a practicing artist, these workshops culminate in the participants writing a scene in a day. The scenes are character driven and engage the participants in the basic principles of writing for the theatre. From these workshops 15 writers are then chosen to participate in a longer, 10-week program. The 10-week courses involve a more detailed examination of playwrighting through workshops and writing exercises. Each course is run by a practicing playwright who meets the group weekly for two-hour sessions. The goal is to create a 20-minute piece for the stage. At the end of the course each participant has a one-to-one session with the PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS tutor to discuss their work. Some of the pieces are given a reading by professional actors at the theatre. From three 10-week courses, 16 budding playwrights are chosen to develop a full-length play with the assistance of a professional dramaturg in the Core Group. Over a seven to eight month period the playwrights might meet the dramaturg individually on five occasions. At the first they might discuss ideas, then develop the ideas, then perhaps look at early material before the first and second drafts are completed. The whole group might meet monthly to discuss ideas, observe readings of work by professional writers or see a show. The idea is to stimulate young writers to explore the art of playwrighting. At the end of the Core Group’s course the plays are given rehearsed readings and sometimes are even produced at the Soho Writers Theatre. Soho’s Schools Programmes involve primary as well as secondary schools. Ten primary schools are given playwrighting workshops with 20 students from each senior class involved. From the 200 completed plays, 24 are chosen to be worked on by a director, actors and a designer for a week. The culmination of this is a Festival of Plays held at the Soho Writers Theatre. The plays are reviewed, given some publicity and viewed by extremely appreciative audiences. All of these programs are aimed to spread and create access to the theatre through playwrighting. At the Traverse in Scotland, similar programs are in place to encourage young writers. Traverse’s schools-based program, Class Acts, involves four months of workshops, development and rehearsed readings. It uses playwrights who are already commissioned by Traverse to act as tutors. There is the same one-to-one mentoring as at Soho, with the tutor attached to a particular school for the duration of the project. Teachers observe the tutor-led workshops, which take place for one to two hours once a week. Plays are limited to four characters and run for about 10 minutes. Initially the tutor visits the school and conducts workshops. Then a director from Traverse and four actors visit the school and work on the partially developed scripts with the young playwrights. Their input is practical, involving discussion, readings, improvisation and question and answer sessions. A month later the plays are sent to Traverse where a team of actors and directors prepare them for rehearsals. Then the team of actors, directors and designers visit the school and conduct rehearsals in the schools. Finally, the plays are rehearsed and performed at Traverse on their Main Stage. It is clear that theatre companies in the United Kingdom have a commitment to young people that goes way beyond cursory education programs. There is no distinction between work for and with young people and the companys’ main stage productions. There is a commitment to develop new writing and to encourage young people to become involved in the theatre. There is a commitment to involving local communities in the life of the company and to search beyond the walls of the theatre for new audiences and for inspiration. Most significantly, theatre professionals are actively involved in this at every level. The companies open their doors to young people by staging festivals and offering cheap tickets and even, at the Young Vic, ice creams! It has always been intriguing to consider how the theatre might create the same energy as a rock concert. At the National, the Royal Court, the Soho Writer’s Theatre, Traverse and the Young Vic this is achieved by creating theatre that is for and by the same audiences that jump up and down for the latest pop sensation. And this was exactly what happened during the curtain call for Moonfleece at the National. It is what happens when Traverse present the plays that have grown out of their schools’ playwrighting programs or when primary students present their plays at Soho. PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS When a group of Aboriginal primary school kids, the Wilcannia Mob, performed their unique form of rap music at the Sydney Opera House they captured the audiences’ hearts. What impact might a play written and performed by a group of Koori kids from Wilcannia have at the same venue? What might be achieved if there were a bunch of kids from Cabramatta performing their play at a festival of young writers? Or kids from Bankstown? Or anywhere in NSW? There are a number of things that need to be addressed if we are to realise the enormous potential that theatre can offer for young people in this State. Although drama is taught in NSW and there is a Scriptwritng Option in the HSC, there is no avenue for the teaching of playwrighting, either in schools or in the community. There are playwrighting courses, but these are not targeted specifically at young people. There are playwrighting competitions such as Page to Stage and the Sydney Theatre Company’s Young Playwright’s Award, but these function at the wrong end of the process. They select completed plays and give them readings or performances. Although there are a million ways to teach playwrighting and, as stated earlier, each playwright/tutor has a particular voice and a particular approach to realising that voice, it should be possible to create a methodology for the teaching of playwrighting that has universal appeal. Constrained as we are by geographical and economic considerations, a textbook on the teaching of playwrighting might serve to introduce young people to writing for the theatre in the way that tutors do in the United Kingdom. A textbook that served as a resource for teachers and offered the kind of step-by-step approach championed by companies like Traverse and Soho might enable young people in this State to discover their theatrical voices. This would obviously be advantageous in both the study of drama and of English but, perhaps as importantly, would introduce young people in outlying as well as urban areas to the possibilities of self expression offered by writing and performing for the theatre. For this to have a real impact it would be necessary to involve theatre companies and theatre professionals in the process. Teachers need to be in serviced in the basics of teaching playwrighting and given the necessary backup when required. Using the programs and festivals conducted in the United Kingdom as a model it would be possible to conduct similar such programs in New South Wales. A festival of playwrighting for young people in New South Wales could involve each school being invited to participate in the festival. A textbook on the teaching of playwrighting could be made available to schools and community groups to kick start the process. Plays could be limited to 10 minutes for primary schools and 30 minutes for high schools. A group of practising playwrights, directors and actors could form a ‘flying squad’ to conduct workshops in each region. This group could function much like the Bell Shakespeare’s Schools Touring Company. Following workshops and maybe even feedback from a team of readers, each region could then hold its own festival. These would be held at regional theatre companies like Hothouse in Albury or at local arts centres. In the days when there was regional theatre in New South Wales they could have been held at Hunter Valley, Theatre South, the New England Theatre Company, The RPG and so on. Who knows, a festival of this kind might revitalise some of these companies. The point is there are theatrical spaces in the regions that could host regional playwrighting festivals. Following these regional festivals, a major theatre like the Sydney Theatre Company or the Opera House could host a festival showcasing the best work from the regions. The response would be overwhelming and would not only bring new writing and new performers to the stage but would also open up the possibilities of the theatre to a whole PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIPS new audience. A festival of this nature could be sponsored by a major company, which would, of course, get incredible exposure from such a partnership. Young people’s voices are heard spasmodically through different forms of music. There is a whole body of artistic expression out there that remains untapped. A generation of young people could well be writing and performing their own work on our stages. The inclusive potential of playwrighting means that young people of all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds could discover a means of self expression, a theatrical voice, that is currently unknown to them. The experience of investigating playwrighting for young people in the United Kingdom shows that it is possible to find and give expression to these voices.