Young Playwrights' Weekend. Director/dramaturg Carol Woodrow. In conjunction with Canberra Youth Theatre, directed by Roland Manderson. December 1996.
Synthia: I mean I'm obsessed with other people's problems you know but I don't know why and I mean I put everything into helping people but I'm wishing they'd stay sick and you know I'm all the time dealing with other people's problems instead of dealing with my own problems so there's just like this ton of problems weighing down on me and I'm sinking deeper into the darkness you know!
This play, The Maze by Niamh Kearney, was the success story of the Young Playwrights' Weekend 1994. Every second year Canberra gets a turn, and it's time now for young people under 25 to get their scripts in for assessment.
The Australian National Young Playwrights' Weekend is a mini version of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference. If you've written a script, it's probably not ready to go on stage without improvements - but how do you know what to do? Leading playwrights like Michael Gow and Dorothy Hewett have had their plays workshopped at the ANPC, and young people can go to the ANYPW. This is not as scary as it sounds, though if your script really isn't ready you'll find this out at the first assessment.
If your play, like The Maze, shows real potential, then you will have at your disposal one of the nicest directors to work with, Carol Woodrow. She'll spend time with you being a dramaturg at first. This means she works through your script and shows you how to change it to make characters or the action come through on stage. After that she will work with you and a group of actors from Canberra Youth Theatre, first of all workshopping the script and finally putting on a workshopped reading in December.
Carol, of course, is an expert at helping playwrights: she directs at the ANPC (held at ANU in the September/October vacation each year) and also directs the ANPC Playwriting Course with Timothy Daly, whose The Moonwalker has recently had a successful run at The Stables Theatre in Sydney. Roland Manderson, who directs Canberra Youth Theatre, says that it's important for Youth Theatre actors (who usually spend most of their time devising their own work) to learn the skills of performing a script according to what the writer wants. And, he says, this works best when the writer is from their own generation. Good pieces don't stop at the workshopped reading: Youth Theatre may take them on to full productions here in Canberra or on tour to other cities.
So if you have a script under way, finish it off and send it to Carol Woodrow, Young Playwrights' Weekend, ANPC, PO Box 1566, Rozelle NSW 2039. To find out more details about dates and costs, you can ring the ANPC on 02 555 9377 or fax them on 02 555 9370.
©Frank McKone
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