While many of the staff at York Theatre Royal are decamping to the National Railway Museum to work on this summer’s production of The Railway Children, and while there will be no shows in the theatre itself during August, there’s still plenty going on in the building during the holidays. Write Through Summer is a series of three three-day workshops led by some of the leading writers in the region - radio playwright Susan Stern, playwright and broadcaster Nigel Forde, and poet Pete Morgan.
York Theatre Royal is delighted to give you the chance to work with them in am three, three-day courses aimed at encouraging aspiring writers to learn new skills, new ideas and to meet new friends. Come prepared to have fun and write hard. All welcome, whatever your age, level of experience or ability.
The workshops will feature a lively mix of reading, listening and writing exercises, with participants working towards some more-or-less finished pieces at the end of the three days. Most importantly, the courses will equip them with skills and ideas to take away, which they can continue to use to develop their writing after the courses are over. The emphasis, according to poet and York Theatre Royal’s Head of Communications, Antony Dunn, is “most definitely on having fun – but there’s a reason why the word ‘workshop’ starts with the word ‘work’, of course.”
He said about the workshops, “York Theatre Royal’s about so much more than just staging plays – we should be a factory, creating, and equipping other people to create, work in every possible artform. It’s very exciting to be able to open up a space for writers of this calibre to work with established and aspiring writers from across the community with the Write Through Summer courses.”
The workshops will be the following:
Thu 7 – Sat 9 Aug, 10am – 4pm
WRITING FOR RADIO
Susan’s plays for BBC Radio 4 include For the Love of Strangers, Smooth as Chocolate and The Story of My Death. Join her to discover some of the tips, tricks and skills of conjuring magical drama for the airwaves.
Thu 14 – Sat 16 Aug, 10am – 4pm
WRITING FOR THE THEATRE
EMMY Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Nigel Forde began his career at York Theatre Royal, later co-founding Riding Lights Theatre Company. He has written scores of plays for adults and children, which have been performed all over the world.
Thu 21 – Sat 23 Aug, 10am – 4pm
WRITING POETRY
His first full-length collection, 'The Grey Mare Being The Better Steed', appeared from Secker & Warburg in 1973. This was followed by 'The Spring Collection' (1979), 'One Greek Alphabet' (1980). Morgan's most recent collection of poems, 'A Winter Visitor', celebrated the Robin Hood's Bay area of North Yorkshire and was hailed by The Observer as 'something of a triumph. the rhythmical energy is a delight, but much else derives from the spare Northern realism which Morgan sets down so accurately.'
“There are famous poets of my generation and younger who have no idea of the debt they owe to Pete Morgan. His poems are dramatic, formally superb, funny, toughly tender, lyrical and never less than entertaining. Ted Hughes was a fan of his.” Carol Ann Duffy. -- www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
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