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14 March 2023

Songs and limitations

The starter for this week’s session of Writing for Stage was
to freewrite a scene that begins ‘A is in the room, B enters, A stands up.’

Our responses included the start of an awkward job
interview, a standoff with guns, the end of the world, and a stranger jumping
out of a vat.

Our next task was to think of a song that brings a strong
memory to mind – considering the colour, the texture, the place, the flavour
(and the aftertaste) it makes us think of, and then to write a first-person present-tense
monologue about the piece of music.

Our responses were inspired by:

  • The Sound of Music
  • Piledriver Waltz, by Alex Turner
  • Welcome to my island, by Caroline Polachek
  • Insomnia, by Can’t get no sleep
  • Jingle Bells

Next, we had 10 minutes to write our ideal scene from
scratch – if you tuned into the TV or were dropped into a theatre seat, what
would be the best thing you could see?

Reading these out, we then became producers and had to
designate limitations onto each other’s scenes (due to budget constraints or uncontrollable
circumstances) leading to a last-minute rewrite.

Our limitations for each other included:

  • The sound system is broken - you are only allowed 2 sound
    effects
  • An actor is injured – they cannot gesture with their arms
  • Investors want product placement for their trainers
  • You are not allowed to cut – it must be 1 continued scene
  • There are children in the audience so it can’t be so scary
  • One actor can’t attend in person and has to zoom in (please
    make this seem natural)
  • We can’t afford to pay the adult actors, but can pay
    half-rates to two children who will take the roles instead
  • Health and safety regulations require you to reconsider the
    stunts in your scene
  • The crank isn’t strong enough to lift the actor, so they
    will stay on the floor









































We got stuck into the challenge, and some of us even found we preferred our pared back second drafts!

Writing for Stage returns next week...

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