This is one of the closing speeches from a play called Lost Voices. It was based on Joe Duffy’s book Children of the Rising.
I played three characters in it. Fortunately one was on video, so I didn’t have to dye my hair between scenes!
This is one of the closing speeches from a play called Lost Voices. It was based on Joe Duffy’s book Children of the Rising.
I played three characters in it. Fortunately one was on video, so I didn’t have to dye my hair between scenes!
I’m about halfway through writing a full length play. Unfortunately it’s not my own. Although I’ve had three plays produced, they were one acts, and I’m far from confident about my ability to write something longer.
I remember, years ago, reading that Sean O’Casey learned to write plays by transcribing Shakespeare. I don’t know if he copied all the plays, but I figured if it was good enough for O’Casey, it’s good enough for me.
I take a scene a day, two if they’re very short, and I find myself thinking about the characters differently than when I simply read the plays. More than that, I’m thinking differently about a play I’ve been trying to write for ages. In fact I’ve abandoned three plays because I couldn’t see how to make them longer than 30 to 40 minutes, even thought I know the subject matter can handle three or four times that length.
I’m on The Merchant of Venice now; I’ll do two more after that, and then give my own work another go.
This is the story of how I came to write my first play.
A kid whose life revolves around dope and drink discovers theatre and begins to save himself.
From the book:
Del turned to me; she didn’t ask if I was a writer; she didn’t ask what I write; she just said ‘Ok, bring something in next week?’ So there I was, embarrassed, afraid, and unable to speak. I mumbled something and she got annoyed. I agreed to write a script for the following week.
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