I love the way you always carry my handbag wherever we go – my “everything but the kitchen sink” handbag – to the club, to the movies, and back up those two flights of stairs that take twice the time they did in the 80s. You’ve carried it for me like a habit, unasked for the last 60 years. For that, I love you.

I love the way you let me copy you in Maths on Monday mornings when you know I am rank hungover from the weekend – you turn to me and you smile that little “rethink your life choices” smile and then you tug my left ear, in a kinda annoying way, but as if I’m gonna complain. Cos I love you.

I love the way you sit hunched on facebook chat like some freaky insomniac tarantula, and the second I come online, you pounce all “BITCH WHASSUUUP” and we talk about who we pashed on the weekend and who was good and who was like a slimy broken washing machine, suds everywhere and bad breath. And for that I love ya. Big time.

I love the way you have no backlit screen to mess with my delicate 2am reading eyes. You’re so light in the hand, my love. You are a revolution in publishing, no matter what the fuddy-duddy “I just need the feel of real paper in my hands” losers say. I really love you.

I love that you’ll hold my hand when I meet you after Period 7 at the school gates and as soon as we walk outside you cram your body and your lips against me so hard it’s like we’re both about to die and everyone gawks at these two blazers, two ties, two trousers, two boys mashed together, breathing as one, but we don’t care anymore. Not a bit. Cos we’re in love.

*****

Alrighty then: How do we write about love? And how do we win a  place at the Fresh Ink National Studio this year and an iPad with Love Bytes? Read on, and give it a go….

In 2010, I was one of several young writers given the task of writing about love for the inaugural atyp monologue showcase and production of Tell It Like It Isn’t – a series of short monologues for young performers, all inspired by first love.

In the writing of my monologue, Little Love, I was forced to consider all the different types of love out there, and why this four-letter word is so directly linked, in different ways and for different reasons, to the experience of being human.

Each Tell It Like It Isn’t writer was asked by playwright Lachlan Philpott to bring an item of inspiration with them to the Fresh Ink National Studio to kick-start their monologue – a piece of music we were obsessed with when we were 16 years old (the most awesome of the lot was Dilemma by Nelly).

By listening to it, this song evoked so strongly the memories and feelings that came with being 16. It was a great way of tapping into something genuine and personal, but also allowed us to broaden and reframe these emotions by creating worlds different to our own immediate experience.

I highly recommend this exercise as a starting point for your own monologue. A good question to ask is: what does this song remind me of, from my own life?

For example, if you listened to the song This is How We Party by SOAP on your Walkman on repeat one afternoon, waiting for someone at the school gates who never showed up (I am really showing my age here, but go with it), every time you hear the song from now on, it will dredge up that feeling of rejection, of self-pity, and of embarrassment.

And while you might not want to share with Australia’s theatre-going community the precise story of what a jerk Billy was for never showing his ugly face, and how much he’ll regret that decision upon seeing your new airbrushed headshot, you can tap into that red-hot searing feeling of rejection to write an entirely new story.

What does rejection feel like on your skin?

What does it do to your tastebuds?

Do your eyes tear up or do you refuse to let yourself cry?

How does rejection manifest itself outside the school gates context; perhaps in an airport arrival lounge, or on an abandoned space station?

The bruises and stains of your own memory will make your writing physical, sensory and human.

In this way, you’ll find yourself writing what you feel, if not necessarily what you know.

And if a song doesn’t work for you, try it with a poem, a work of art, a flower, a smell, your grandma’s borscht, or whatever else floats your boat.

Our final monologues for Tell It Like It Isn’t were fascinatingly varied, and reflected the full breadth of our imagination and passions. There was romantic love, sure, in all its permutations, but the buck didn’t stop there. There’s familial love, for your parents or siblings or creepy Uncle Bob or nosy Aunt Mary. There’s social love – for your ever-patient best friend, or that cool kid whose life you just want to grab and make your own. There’s even consumer love – for a gadget, for a schoolies cruise, or for the effect that Lynx deodorant has on all the ladies hanging round your locker.

There’s love that’s reciprocated, or love that is tragically one-sided.

There’s love that lasts for months or years or forever, but there’s also a kind of love that exists in one touch, or kiss, or one night spent together.

Love is day and night obsession, either humming constantly, or hitting you in little jagged bolts of memory.

Love is fear and panic and the midnight terror of having something to lose.

Love can be wonderful, but it can also make you feel bad and sad; ugly and unsure.

Love is much much more than ‘happily ever after’.

So what’s your love story?

Tell us your love story in less than 3 minutes, with our online monologue competition, Love Bytes, now launched. As Jessica notes, you can can win a place at our Fresh Ink National Studio and an iPad.

The monologues from The Voices Project 2011: Tell It Like It Isn’t, featuring Jessica Bellamy’s Little Love, are now available from Currency Press, in a collection that also contains the scripts for The Voices Project 2012: The One Sure Thing, the 2012 monologue showcase. Click here to purchase.

I knew this image took place in a kitchen and that the person floating away was doing so because they had lost a lot of blood.

Blood and guts and the body are recurring themes in my work over the past year. I’m not sure what this means, even on a pop-psychology sort of level, so I assume I’ll keep writing about these things until I figure out why.

Rhys Keir performs Hunger, by Brooke Robinson in the 2010 atyp production of The One Sure Thing

Hunger places seventeen-year-old Sam in a commercial kitchen that is also a dystopia. It’s a world of total loneliness and disconnection and he as a kitchen hand is desperate for approval and kindness from the head chef.

I was interested in writing about a world I knew nothing about – a busy commercial kitchen. I spent some time reading blogs of professional chefs to try and get an idea of the way they spoke and what their day-to-day life is like. What I read was people who, in their quest to make the best food and become the most popular chef, ended up living an insular life on the fringes of society by working very long and very odd hours. A blog by a chef in New York gave me a great starting point: “a life of broken dreams, broken lives and living in the moment. No past, no present, just ‘get it out there’ and make sure it’s HOT.”

I would make Sam’s dystopian kitchen a closed, timeless, sort of self-perpetuating system where nothing but getting the food out mattered – not even bleeding to death!

As Sam cooks on the production line, he realises he has cut himself and has dripped blood into one of the dishes. The head chef doesn’t notice and serves the dish to restaurant customers without Sam able to stop him. The customers applaud the food and soon the whole restaurant wants Sam’s dish. Aware that it’s his blood that has made the food so desirable, Sam secretly leaks more and more of his blood into the dishes, his reward being affection from the head chef, something he has never had before, possibly from anyone.

With Hunger, I chose to write about death in a blunt way by showing a death on stage. Sam ultimately sacrifices his life for what he sees as his only opportunity for approval and human connection and thus dies satisfied. He dies outside of the kitchen and its self-perpetuating system – his death is of little importance and the hellish world of the kitchen will carry on uneffected.

There are three worlds in the play: the dystopian kitchen, the bleached, calm and almost forbidden world of the restaurant and the alfresco dining area, a sort of fantasy escape world where Sam goes to die.

Sam and the head chef’s is the only relationship in the play and it is a very utilitarian one.

Sam speaks to the head chef for the duration of the monologue, although most of the conversation exists in his head and only a fraction is actually said aloud. We get the idea that Sam has a lot of these one-way conversations with his boss. Maybe he has conversations – real or imagined – with other people outside of the play, but this is the one that matters.

For me, Hunger is a play of images and rhythms: I hope that line-by-line I’ve somewhat captured the sense of urgency and mania of a commercial kitchen and that the images are a truthful albeit unrealistic way of portraying death.

***

Hunger is one of ten monologues from The Voices Project 2012: The One Sure Thing, currently running at atyp in Sydney. It is also included in The Voices Project, which is available for purchase from Currency Press. 

THE VOICES PROJECT brings together the best of new monologue writing from atyp’s Fresh Ink emerging playwright program , and presents it on stage, on page, on film and online, giving voice to a new generation of Australian writers, theatremakers, filmmakers and performers.

THE VOICES PROJECT kicked off in February 2011 with THE VOICES PROJECT : TELL IT LIKE IT ISN’T, a critically acclaimed stage show of monologues exploring the joys and heartbreaks of first love. Written by our Fresh Ink writers at the annual Fresh Ink National Studio and performed by the atyp ensemble actors, ten striking characters told us just how first love can bite, bruise and send you soaring.

Two of the TELL IT LIKE IT ISN’T monologues have now been adapted by their playwrights, working with filmmaker Damien Power, into THE VOICES PROJECT short films, premiering online in March:

• in BAT EYES, by Jessica (SPROUT) Bellamy, 16 year old Adam callously inflicts humiliation on a classmate, before experiencing the pangs and anguish of first love, lost love and finding beauty in unexpected places.
• in BOOT, by Joanna (KIJE) Erskine, best friends become the worst of enemies as a night out ends in tragedy, recriminations and a terrible secret.

And in THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING, the monologue showcase is back for 2012, this time exploring how our experiences of death and our reactions to it, can ultimately determine how we choose to live our lives. Find out more and book tickets, here.

The combined monologues of TELL IT LIKE IT ISN’T and THE ONE SURE THING will be available in THE VOICES PROJECT, now available from Currency Press.

And you can also be part of THE VOICES PROJECT, by writing about love in LOVE BYTES, our online monologue competition, now launched. You can win a place at our annual  Fresh Ink National Studio and an iPad.

And check out  TO BE, the promo of THE VOICES PROJECT. Filmed in just one day, 10 great actors, 1 great monologue in one beautiful city. Watch below, and you can meet the cast, here.

To stay up to date with THE VOICES PROJECT:

Follow THE VOICES PROJECT on Facebook.
Check out THE VOICES PROJECT on Tumblr.
Watch THE VOICES PROJECT on vimeo.
Watch THE VOICES PROJECT on YouTube.
Follow THE VOICES PROJECT on Twitter.
See photos from THE VOICES PROJECT on Flickr.

It’s often said that in the unpredictability of life we can only count on one sure thing. Makes you wonder why it keeps coming as such a surprise!

We are very proud of  THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING, which ran across February this year.

Featuring ten compelling collection of monologues from the country’s brightest emerging playwrights and performed by atyp‘s ensemble actors, THE ONE SURE THING explored how our experiences of death and our reactions to it, can ultimately determine how we choose to live our lives.

Moving, humorous and ultimately life-affirming, THE ONE SURE THING comprised ten scripts devised and developed at the recent Fresh Ink National Studio, and features work by Carolyn Burns, Alice Cooper, Alexandra Cullen, Sarah Gaul, Alysha Herrmann, Laura Hopkinson, Alexandra Macalister-Bills, Emrys Quin, Brooke Robinson and Georgia Symons.

THE ONE SURE THING is the second annual monologue showcase of THE VOICES PROJECT, following on from last year’s critically acclaimed TELL IT LIKE IT ISN’T. Born from the need for quality scripts specifically tailored for young actors, this collection of seven-minute monologues will challenge the way you look at youth theatre and is a unique first-look opportunity at the scripts that young people all over Australia will be performing for years to come.

THE ONE SURE THING starred Emma Campbell, Kate Campbell, Lucy Coleman, Charlotte Hazzard, Rhys Keir, Emma Khamis, Patrick Richards and Julia Rorke. It was directed by Tanya Goldberg, with sound design by Kingsley Reeve and lighting design by Verity Hampson.

The collected monologues of THE ONE SURE THING and TELL IT LIKE IT ISN’T are now available from Currency Press. 

Find out more about THE VOICES PROJECT, see, here.

Follow THE VOICES PROJECT on Facebook.
Check out THE VOICES PROJECT on Tumblr.
Watch THE VOICES PROJECT on vimeo.
Watch THE VOICES PROJECT on YouTube.
Follow THE VOICES PROJECT on Twitter.
See photos from THE VOICES PROJECT on Flickr.

It’s been almost a month since the 2011 Fresh Ink National Studio.

That’s a month without thinking about jumping in the Shoalhaven River, without attending a workshop on playwriting, being cooked for, thinking and talking about monologues, eating lots of dessert and being asked politely “not to tweet that”.

Having the critical distance now to reflect entirely subjectively on the week, I thought I probably should.

We began with a very serious bus drive from atyp to Riversdale. Serious because the bus driver was on some kind of mission unbeknownst to us that would be thrown wildly off course if we were to even stop for half an hour. We nevertheless did, much to his displeasure and made it on to Riversdale with only a mild amount of panic as we descended a particularly steep hill.

After finding our rooms that were lovely, kind of spartan, not quite inside, not quite outside bunkers with views of the valley, we had a quick introduction and broke into workshop groups.

Tutors Peta Murray, Caleb Lewis and Ross Mueller all took six writers and worked on a series of exercises. I shadowed Caleb’s group which I codenamed: “Group Average”. This was because I knew there would come a time when I would need to reflect on this and to have them represented too kindly would create jealously in the other groups. It’s kind of like when your parents are teachers or sports coaches and have to over-compensate to avoid favoritism.

Group Average worked on autobiographical exercises, drawing out moments from their own lives that were seminal without being emotionally traumatic. It was a way to practice introspection and drawing on personal experiences as a way to begin work.

The first night was spent in a discussion about death and dying, the theme of this year’s monologue showcase THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING (opening in Feb 20120), facilitated by Kerrie Noonan from The Groundswell Project.

We kicked things off on Tuesday with the first Masterclass given by Ross about Dialogue. “Dialogue allows a character to lie”, Ross said. It is an opportunity to show them in their truest form and is full of action and used to progress a scene.

With Group Average, I watched Caleb extend this in his workshop where they applied the rules of character in dialogue to the monologue form. Caleb asked the group to write a monologue and switch between tenses, reporting from all different perspectives and with varying motives. Just because the narrator is in control, doesn’t mean they have to be reliable. Nor do we want “a story on rails”, Caleb stressed. “You have the opportunity here to pose a question to an audience that you may or may not answer”. It was from this challenge to create something interesting and that said something substantial to an audience that the writers all set off to begin these monologues. Throughout the next few days they met individually with their tutors and worked with one another to figure out what they were doing. There was a lovely balance of reading helpful plays, looking at a selection of readings provided by Peta, and lots of writing.

On Wednesday morning, Caleb ran a discussion on Comedy and Tragedy and how these things operate on a structural level. It involved a dissection of the old ‘man slips on a banana peel’ gag and looked at the elements that made it funny. You’d think this would eventually make the joke less amusing. Not so. ‘Man sees banana peel, steps over it, falls into open manhole’ continues to be my personal favourite. That afternoon, Group Average spent their workshop session deep in discussion. What was proving to be most challenging was finding a voice for the character. Caleb suggested asking them things that delved into the humanity of their character: What do they identify with? What is the way they wish to be perceived? What is the language available to them?

On the Wednesday night PlayWriting Australia‘s Chris Mead paid a a visit and facilitated The Write Stuff, a roundtable discussion with the tutors about their craft and their career pathways.

.

Thursday continued with another masterclass where Peta lead us through a building metaphor to illustrate the craft that goes along with writing, while in Friday’s masterclass Caleb discussed the elements of narrative. He talked about finding the central elements of a narrative, asking questions such as Who it’s about? What is their problem? How do they solve it? and How do we show the character through their actions and not just their words? . On Thursday and Friday evenings the monologues being developed over the week for THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING were read so that the writers could hear their work and get feedback from the other participants and tutors.

Before departing on Saturday, Ross summed up some useful tips for practicing as playwrights. He emphasised that everyone has an individual method and that being a playwright is not about writing 24/7. In fact, sometimes a few months off could be very useful. As could learning more about actors and really acquainting yourself with the theatre. Everyone then had a chance to share what they’d learned.

The overwhelming feeling was how valuable the sense of community was and how generous the advice had been throughout the week. The opportunity to test each other in making work in a short time period had allowed the writers to challenge and surprise themselves as well as better discover their practice. All these things equated to a week that left everyone with a greater sense of direction, a wider outlook on the writing practice and the excitement of returning to the real world to implement it all.

Fraser Corfield, Artistic Director of atyp, reiterated that the week was not only about writing a monologue, but the burst of energy that surrounded these new connections.

I very much enjoyed my time with Group Average and all those at the 2011 National Studio.

It’s hard to be too sad though.

Considering the continuing presence in the theatre community of the previous National Studio attendees (amongst them, Jessica Bellamy, Joanna Erskine, Phil Spencer, Zoe Hogan and Tim Spencer), I’m positive I’ll be seeing these guys again very soon.

You can find out more about all of the participants of the Fresh Ink National Studio, here.

Read more from Jenni from this year’s National Studio, here.

THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING opens at atyp in February, while the call for the 2012 Fresh Ink National Studio opens in May.

Last week, I was observing at the Fresh Ink National Studio or Monologue Camp, as I like to call it.

It’s hard not to feel pressure to write a monologue at Monologue Camp.

Luckily, writers don’t generally travel in packs and so rarely have the means to corner you and challenge you to write something.

The danger, I realized, is at meal times when the group is larger and stronger.

I can’t remember how many there were now, all I know is that suddenly, a group of articulate individuals were persuading me to put pen to paper.

“It will be fun”, they said. One of them patted me on the shoulder encouragingly. Some gave me approving glances. It was all very frightening.

So I asked around for some advice.

Lauren gave me the first good piece of information: know your audience, know who you’re talking to or who your character is talking to.

Eloise said to have a really good premise and a juicy character, Jessie told me to keep it short and Kendall told me not to be boring.

Based on this, my first idea to write a 30 minute piece from the perspective of a book restorer talking to no one about what tools would best suit the recovery of a 19th century book on sailing, should probably be discarded.

Jess gave me some advice on setting the right mood for creativity. Good views, beautiful imagery, great conversation, some light jazz piano, walks up mountains and amazing food.

Sarah told me to sit naked and meditate in water heated to 31 degrees. I’ve yet to decide whether this is good or bad advice. All I know is my fingers are wrinkly and all my ideas are bath and water related.

Then Ewen gave me the most specific advice of anyone: a whole lot of ferrets. I feel like he was taking advantage of my vulnerable and impressionable state but I also know that these are all trained writers. So I had no other choice but to start from this point: a monologue that contains a lot of ferrets.

To begin this monologue, Alex told me to ask my character a lot of questions and to wear comfortable clothes. This may fit in with Alice’s procrastination-based approach of alternating small amounts of work with big walks.

I did also see three of the writers rolling down a hill at one stage, so I guess being prepared for physical distractions is a wise move.

Laura’s recipe was: two shovels of ice cream per sentence.

Georgia told me to pick someone funny and plagiarize their life.

While staring down the barrel of a monologue about a ferret who goes on adventures that are really similar to one of my hilarious friends, Carolyn told me she begins by writing a couple of stories and finding one she wants to tell.

Brooke advised that the character is talking to someone for a reason at a specific time.

Phil talked about negotiating the relationship between the character speaking and who they are speaking to, thinking about why they are saying it.

Lydia told me to think about the things the character does not need to say.

Ali, still amused and slightly horrified by some of the monologues aimed at the teenage boy market, said not to underestimate how totally sick and disgusting people could be.

The monologues in question did this very well, so I’d not like to compete.

But this approach does suggest that unique voices with a brave idea do resonate pretty solidly.

In worrying about your idea compared to someone else’s, Alysha’s suggestion was to not get caught up in what other people are doing but to write the story that you want to write. Once you have words on paper you can worry whether they’re good or bad.

Emrys was encouraging. For him, the monologue is about the immediacy of a character in every facet of the way they’re telling the story. It’s an opportunity to be as surreal as you like because there’s no one between you and the truth, and a chance to tell a story honestly.

Throughout the week, this was the advice the writers gave themselves (well, maybe not everyone) when working on their monologues.

They went to masterclasses in the morning about general craft and then broke into groups of 6 where they discussed their pieces and worked on specific elements of technique like writing in different tenses and writing autobiographically.

They were paired with a dramaturgical friend who would assist them and read their piece aloud.

In the afternoon there were one on one sessions with a tutor and on the final two nights, half the group’s pieces were read out and received written feedback from the participants.

The tutors were all impressed by such a high standard of work which will now be showcased in: THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING, at atyp early next year and published as monologues for use by drama students in the practical component of the HSC.

Which brings me to the monologue I have written.

It is a short, kind of surreal piece from the perspective of an animal that may or may not be a ferret.

It’s really funny.

If you read it or see it you’ll definitely know who the animal is talking to and why.

You’ll also see straight away that as well as being hilarious, it has extraordinary cultural and political significance.

It is formally challenging but without being too intimidating, so don’t worry.

The resolution is so powerful that many have not known whether to cry or laugh. Some have done both.

Unfortunately it was not developed as part of the Studio so won’t be published or showcased in February.

I also lost my only copy in a fire. It’s devastating but you’ll just have to trust that based on the advice I received, it was brilliant.

*****

You can find out more about all of the participants of the Fresh Ink National Studio, here.

Read more from Jenni from this year’s National Studio, here.

THE VOICES PROJECT: THE ONE SURE THING opens at atyp in February, while the call for the 2012 Fresh Ink National Studio opens in May.

That is unless you find yourself in the award-winning architecture, unable to remember whether your need to move the lock on the toilet door to the right or to the left to get out.

In this situation, several options always run through my head: do I call out for a friend? Or do I persevere in the hope that jiggling it for a bit longer will free me from this awkward prison? Either way this is a moment filled with panic, sadness and bemusement. This is usually coupled with projected images of me still living there in 5 years, 10 years and even 50 years time until I, as is most apt, expire in the style of Elvis.

“To expire in the style of Elvis” was not one of the options that came up in the first discussion of the Fresh Ink National Writers Studio that started on Monday here in Riversdale. Understandably, it’s not something that should usually be expected to arrive in a conversation. It might be though, if you were a group of young writers about to start a week of writing a 7 – 8 minute monologue about loss, death or dying.

A selection of the monologues produced will be performed in atyp‘s forthcoming production The One Sure Thing, a follow-up to their acclaimed Tell It Like It Isn’t monologue showcase of February 2011, part of The Voices Project, a multiplatform program aiming to produce a panorama of Australian voices from the next generation of writers, performers and directors.

Kerrie Noonan from The Groundswell Project came along on the first night of the Studio to introduce the topic. Groundswell is a movement aiming to create wellbeing and healthy attitudes towards death and dying using the creative arts. Significantly, it works towards removing a lot of the assumptions that are developed by our society in our approach to death. This was an important conversation to facilitate the beginning of the week-long process but also to establish that the monologues did not need to focus on sadness, on physical death or moments of extreme grief.

As the weather was a bit cold and a bit gloomy, over the week we have tucked ourselves away indoors for tutorials, workshops and masterclasses with our three tutors: Caleb Lewis, Ross Mueller and Peta Murray, who also took time out to sit down with me to talk about their experience of the National Writers Studio from the perspective of working writers and dramaturgs.

“The benefit of the week is not writing a monologue”, says Caleb, “It’s the community collaboration and the workshop classes”. Peta agrees, citing her own experience – her early work was spent in Sydney where she didn’t have this same network of writers and the support base of a specific cohort – and admitting a slight envy compared to the situation when she was emerging. She commends such a program as Fresh Ink and the way it creates ongoing dramaturgical, directorial and actor based relationships. Again, for Caleb, a programme such as this is about supporting and teaching new writers but also the joy of communicating about things generally done in solitude.

‘Whatever we write, it’s always refracted through who we are.’ Caleb Lewis

There is of course, an inescapable sense of competition and intimidation that comes along with group programmes. I myself have spent quite some time deliberately trying to pit one writer against another to see if it might provoke some kind of very well worded rap battle.

It’s not yet been successful.

Partly this might be because they’re enjoying the process of learning about their craft too much and helping each other produce work. Caleb put it best when he talked about the freedom he approaches sharing ideas of craft and process beyond any kind of rivalry, as “Whatever we write, it’s always refracted through who we are” and is therefore utterly unique.

But why have they put themselves through this experience (besides the location)?

“I’m now at a point in my career where I have something to give back”, Ross said. For him this opportunity is also a way to create a bridge between these young writers and the development of new writing in Victoria. As the Artistic Director of Courthouse Arts in Geelong, being on the Studio is a way to connect with young writers and spread the message that “This is a place where you can come to write or develop a play”. Peta agrees that it helps with everyone’s professional practice and for her is a way to learn from the participants as well. “I feel I come here and hear about writers I haven’t heard of before and new styles of theatre.”

Ross described a growing amount of residencies, mentorships, developments and funding for young writers. “If I was an emerging writer now I’d be applying for things left right and centre”, said Caleb, and in a panel discussion with all three and PlayWriting Australia‘s Chris Mead on the Wednesday night reiterated taking advantage of these opportunities and forging your own pathways. (Check out the Twitter feed on #NS11). To encourage and mentor young writers, Chris said, is very important to foster sustainable and lengthier careers. Generating relationships with people in theatre companies is a way for writers to occupy positions as active parts of this process. While this happens in some instances from meetings, Ross was clear that putting on your own work was often a great start and was, in fact, his launch pad.

One of the most important points was that you can’t function artistically if your writing is dictated by what you think someone else will like.

Instead, surprises and bravado in choices that reward your personal sensibility but most importantly your passion, anger or enthusiasm for an idea, will lead to a far more valuable mistake or reward. “If you’re scared of failure, your idea will stay really safe and inoffensive but also forgettable”, Caleb said. Ross is similarly driven forward by this idea of constructing a “community of discussion” that shapes the theatrical experience and audience exchange.

With all of these dynamic ideas swirling about the place, it’s hard not to be excited about the writing that’s going on and the community that is producing it.

And Peta provided a very useful metaphor in her masterclass (and her accompanying blog piece) of the writer as a builder.

I like the idea of the writer crafting and planning, constructing much like an architect.

In fact, I’d very much like to talk to one of them about the locks in this building.

***

You can read more from Jennifer about the National Studio in the coming weeks. Follow us on Facebook for first news of National Studio 2012.

But at atyp, in a recent Fresh Ink/PlayWriting Australia event, playwrights Jane Bodie, Shôn Dale-Jones, Rita Kalnejais, Phil Spencer and moderator Chris Mead (Artistic Director of PlayWriting Australia) tackled how to take those very deeply personal events and make them into great theatre.

Admittedly I am not a playwright and even if my therapist or I happen to uncover 10 or 20 years from now that I have been secretly a repressed playwright for all this time, I can assure you, I’ll still not be a very good one.

I especially know that this is not the calling for me by the simple fact that I consistently misspell “Playwriting” with a “gh” in “writing”. I’ve done it three times already so it’s for the best really that I steer clear.

It’s probably why I am so fascinated by the writing process though and the unique craft employed to create such spellbinding work, with full knowledge that it is not the way in which I see the world.

Jane Bodie, head of playwriting at NIDA and the writer of Griffin Theatre Company’s This Year’s Ashes was asked why choose theatre over any other art form to express grief or investigate death and sadness. She answered that she thought in theatre terms and so it was only natural that it would be within this space that she chose to investigate it.

Shôn, currently performing Story of a Rabbit at the Opera House, concurred, stating that in trying to convey grief, the collective experience that is theatre offered the perfect environment. Having seen his show earlier in the week, it’s easy to see what he means. It is a show that is filled with generosity and multiple shared experiences, shaping grief and death for an audience and making it all much easier to digest, even providing a little hope.

What everyone agreed on was that it was important to bring the funny.

That’s not to say that there isn’t space for drama, but what the writers all specialized in was using these situations, often coming straight from their lives, to make people laugh.

Rita Kalnejais, whose beautiful piece Babyteeth is on at Belvoir in 2012, said that it was so nice to laugh in a big group of people and that the experience of theatre is about “pleasure and people coming together”. For Jane also, humor causes a release for an audience from such grief, boldly declaring early on in the discussion the romantic comedy be seen as high art.

“Time loses meaning when you’re in a relationship with death”

Common themes emerged across the writers’ semi-autobiographical pieces about grief and dying: order perching on the edge of chaos; loving when you have nothing to lose; the complexities of time and how in moments of grief and death and dying things speed up, slow down and become so personal that everyone’s memory is different. The biggest point to make was that all the writers present these potentially somber topics with hope, not despair.

“To grieve demonstrates great love” said Jane Bodie and to make people feel this love was Jane’s advice to playwrights, based on her experience of writing her father’s death as part of her recent work. Rita similarly discussed her exploration of the freedom and joy that could come at this mysterious point on the brink of life and death in Babyteeth.

“If you’re going to write about death, you’re really writing about life”

Grief though is of course an immensely personal thing. I’ve always thought that at any given moment you on some level have a future projection of the people and relationships in your life that you factor into all of your plans. Why I think grief affects us so profoundly is that it immediately shatters these projections and from that moment on, a comfortable assessment of our entire future must be re-evaluated, hence the profound loss. But how to make this personal experience accessible for others, and importantly valuable or useful?

For Shôn, it’s important to know when times call for the reality and facts of a situation or experience and when an imaginative world is allowed to take over. Luis Bunuel wrote that “fantasy and reality are equally personal and equally felt, so their confusion is only of relative importance” and the panel agreed that it’s not the goal of great art to simply show us an idea, but to feel it. In taking these personal stories and using them as a way to make people laugh, cry but give hope, something we all know to be true is illuminated in a shared positive experience.

“Sometimes in a moment close to death, people can be living so completely.”

Phil, currently Co-Artistic Director of, and performing in The Horse’s Mouth festival of autobiographical writing at the Old Fitzroy, mentioned the feminist proverb that the personal is always political. Shôn Dale Jones also stressed theatre as the beginning of a public forum where something is presented for a purpose and can from then on be a point of discussion. Both work with their own stories but ensure that they are entirely theatrical. Phil works with cakes and dramaturgs and Shôn uses the character Hugh Hughes in whose imaginative world everything is ‘brilliant’. For both, this was a way that their autobiographies were able to emotionally affect people in the realm of the fictional with a powerful outcome.

It’s safe to say that it was never the goal of really answering all the big questions surrounding this discussion. The only human panel who could come close to doing that would involve 8 more people at the table, one of whom would be a prophet, all of whom would inspire a Dan Brown novel or two.

But there was a beautiful sense that for all, the immediacy and bonding nature of theatre was prime for starting a public discussion and contemplation of these big questions in a really positive and often funny way.

Rita may have summed it up best when she mentioned that the closer we come to death, the closer it brings us to life.

And I would have to agree.

A couple of months ago, I was asked to write something for the Fresh Ink blog. I was told it should be something about inspiration and creativity, and it should be personal. I said “Yes” straight away. After some thought I decided that I wanted to write about my experience with a play I had written years ago, inspired by but not directly about, the death of my mother from a rare form of ovarian cancer, 7 years ago.

However, as time ticked over, I found myself sending apology emails to Fresh Ink. Something had come up that would mean I needed more time, although I didn’t know how long. As time would have it, it was a three-month wait for this post. In that short time my Dad was diagnosed with, and passed away from, two Grade 4 brain tumours.

I wanted to write about what creativity means to me, and it’s in times such as these that I think it means the most. We all have a reason to write. We might love writing, but there’s got to be a reason as to why we do it. For a long time I didn’t know why I wrote until I stepped back and looked at my repertoire. It was all about things I hadn’t experienced. As writers, we have a tremendous opportunity to digest life and make sense of it through art. The old cliché of getting to walk around in other people’s shoes, with no consequences. It’s a thrill and it helps us make sense of this sometimes bizarre world we live in. That’s why I wrote many of my plays – K.I.J.E., Bye Bye Baby, Little Mouse – I didn’t understand something, so I wrote to understand it.

But sometimes inspiration isn’t so deliberate. Sometimes it jumps up and catches you by surprise. Sometimes your creativity operates for a reason, even if you are unaware of it until it’s done its magic.

I’d just turned twenty, when after a five and a half year battle with cancer, my beloved Mum passed away. I was devastated. Like many in my family I had convinced myself she was invincible, as she had fought with such strength and positivity the whole way through. At the time I was a university student, active in our Drama Society. I was busy learning my craft, directing my own plays year after year, and cutting my teeth before graduating into the wider industry. It came time to pitch for our annual new play season, and I wondered what I could possibly write about this year. The idea of telling my own story seemed too fresh and raw. I wasn’t sure I wanted to put it on stage just yet, if ever. Instead I wrote the play Leave A Message, about a young guy called Will who was killed in a motorbike accident. His story was told through a series of flashbacks and present memories, by his sister, best friend, ex-girlfriend, and Will himself. Some of my closest friends and now established actors embarked on the journey with me in these roles –Geraldine Hakewill, James Mackay, Eloise Snape and Anthony Slater.

As the director of the play, I suppose I had removed myself from the story and was so preoccupied with realising it on stage that I never stopped to think about what I’d written. It wasn’t until the lights dimmed on opening night after our first performance that I stopped to contemplate. There was complete silence from the audience. Usual fears kick in. “They hate it.” “I’m a failure.” “Where is the nearest bucket?” Yet, after about 10 agonising seconds of silence, there came a noise. Sniffing. From all around me. The audience was in tears. Slowly came the applause, strong and humbling. Friends told me they had never seen their boyfriend cry before. One audience member who had suffered recent heartache couldn’t physically leave their seat. Another knew someone in a similar accident, and sat there mute, eyes glazed over. I felt equal amounts of apologetic sympathy and inner excitement. My words had power in their pain and a profound impact on an audience. They had also told the audience my story.

On stage, clear for all to see, was my grieving process in all its forms. I’d been very wrong in thinking that just because I’d imagined a fictional situation, that it wasn’t about me. I was there, my family was there, my mother was there in that play. It had been a cathartic experience and I hadn’t even noticed. Through writing the play, I understood myself more. I had attempted to make sense of my experience, my emotions, my heartache, my reaction against moving forward with my life. It wasn’t by any means a brilliant play, but it remains the seminal experience in my playwriting career.

And now, through a very different process, as a 27-year old woman I have watched my brilliant, strong, fit-as-a-fiddle father succumb to a vicious illness. I have, with my family around me, been on the brink of life and death with another human being. I have been truly thankful for the time I had with him, the moments he gave us with the strength he had left, and the memories I will forever hold close. And all the while, through the whole thing, friends and family have in their quiet voices smiling said, “Well, there’ll be a play in this, Jo.” And I know there will be. It’s been forming in my head as soon as the process began. It’s my creativity again, letting me know that it will help me deal with anything that comes my way. It might not be me or my Dad or my family onstage, but it will be our story.

And it’s times like these that I feel so lucky I write.

PlayWriting Australia and Fresh Ink are bringing together a panel of leading practitioners to talk about life, death and the playwright’s approach to both for a special roundtable event this Friday at atyp. More details, here.