Matilda Ibini is a bionic playwright and screenwriter of Nigerian heritage from London. She has had work staged at the Old Vic Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Bush Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, National Theatre Shed, St James Theatre, Royal Exchange Manchester, Soho Theatre, Arcola Theatre, Bunker Theatre, Hackney Showroom and Vaults Festival. 

In 2020 Matilda worked with ETT on an audio play for our digital project, F**ked Up Bedtime Stories. We were delighted to have her back to be our writer on attachment for Nationwide Voices!

This is a blog post with her thoughts and reflections on the Nationwide Voices session with guest speaker, Eve Leigh.

Hey curious reader,

The name’s Matilda Ibini, I’m a bionic playwright and screenwriter of Nigerian heritage from London. I first engaged with English Touring Theatre when I was commissioned to write a short audio story for their F**ked Up Bedtime Stories (for adults) earlier this year (which by the way is still online, available and free to listen to on all your favourite audio platforms).

I had so much fun writing and developing my audio short story which was directed by ETT’s (brilliant!) Creative Associate Jennifer Bakst, so when she asked if I wanted to be ETT’s nominated writer for the NV programme, I was delighted at the chance to collaborate again with Jenny and ETT (and a little chuffed they weren’t sick of me… yet). The sessions so far have been great and remind me as a writer, the learning is never over. There’s always a new technique to put in your toolbox, there’s always a new perspective to see your craft through and there’s always a new exercise to trial that may help your overall process.

So for this week’s session our amazing workshop leader Chris Bush led us through an exercise on plotting and how characters generate plot. She shared that this exercise will help ensure your plot and character feel interwoven and that the audience is experiencing the world of the play through your characters and their responses. We did this by analysing the protagonist of her phenomenal community play and it’s titular character, Pericles. But the great thing about this exercise is that it can be applied to not only your protagonist but all the characters in your play.

We did this by mapping out the following of Pericles in a spider like diagram:

-What is their mask?
-What weaknesses do they use their mask to hide?
-What are their strengths?
-What are their fears?
-What are their most desirable traits? (aspects of their personality that make you love them)
-What are their most despised traits? (aspects of their personality that make you hate them)

This exercise is also great as a visual aid, reminding you of the internal struggles your character faces that may not be present in the dialogue or even the story, but which impact the decisions they make. After all it was once said (I can’t remember by who) that theatre is live decision making and getting to watch the fall out of those decisions. So understanding the conscious and unconscious desires of your characters can be a really helpful way of generating conflict especially when they go against their internal motives/beliefs.

Our guest speaker this week was the incredibly talented Eve Leigh who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on her play Midnight Movie (and is a kind badass in the industry). She came to talk to us about writing between media.

Eve shared a different way of thinking about narrative that comes from games… (drumroll please)….MDA language – it is a way of understanding how action works in a game (but also theatre) and how audiences perceive action in a game (but also theatre). It is used in the early stages of game design and centres the audiences (gamers) experience.

The first principle is Mechanic which expresses How do you win?

Which can be interpreted to how does the audience win? What feels like a win to the audience? Is the win for the protagonist/antagonist different to the win for the audience? Another way of thinking about mechanic are what are your characters objectives?

The second principle is Dynamic which expresses How it feels to play the game? (Also – How it feels to watch the game?) For example the dynamics of playing football are different to the dynamics of playing poker. Part of the dynamic of poker is that you aren’t able to see other players decks so there’s a degree of suspense and strategy, whereas in football the more your able to see the whole field, the easier it is for the player to play football (but also if you’re watching the game and can’t see the field, it makes it harder to follow and therefore care about) meaning a major factor in the dynamic of football relies on seeing the whole field.

Which can be interpreted to how does it feel to watch the play for the audience? How active a role do they play in what is happening on stage?

The third principle is Aesthetic which expresses How does the game look?

Which can be interpreted to how does your play look and feel. Aesthetics can invite as well as set the audiences expectation. For example a panto has a very identifiable aesthetic – cartoonish, bright colours, 2D sets, heavy make-up etc. This also makes me think of horror movies (if you’re into that, I dabble) but we as an audience usually know something bad is about to happen if the scene is taking place at night or in a location with little light (basements, forests, graveyards) and most identifiably the music changes.

The MDA framework raised some questions about stories I am currently developing. How can I elevate my dynamic and aesthetic choices as a way to get the story leaping off the page? What will the audience expect when they see the aesthetics of my play and how can I fulfil, play with or subvert those expectations? Or how I could be bold in the offer of the storytelling style for collaborators (everything from the actors, lighting designer, sound designer, costume, movement etc)? I don’t have the answers right now but mining these questions feels like an exciting task. I also think this framework can be useful when redrafting your play, thinking about how your play is addressing each principle, and follow how those principles are actualised into the production. This is a framework I will definitely be coming back to and exploring further.

What was so great about exploring the MDA framework is how visual it is. Thinking of your play as a kind of game; the outcomes you want for your characters and the outcomes you want for your audience should be different as another way of creating conflict. Like I said earlier, throughout my career I feel like I am accumulating a toolbox of techniques, exercises, methods (almost like cheats in a game) to help me through the levels of writing and conquering my play. The further you go the harder the game gets, just like writing, so when you do win, it makes it that much sweeter. (I’m aware this is a very messy metaphor – kinda like my process). Basically there is no universal remote in playwriting. No one tool can fix all your plays problems and so your toolbox should be overflowing and varied because you never know when you’ll need to go rooting around in there for the right tool.

matildaibini.com

Asif Khan is one of the six writers participating in the inaugural year of our Nationwide Voices programme. This is a blog post with his thoughts and reflections on the Nationwide Voices session with guest speaker, Emily Lim.

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of ETT’s Nationwide Voices since the end of August, one of six writers to be involved. Each writer has been nominated for the programme by a theatre or company. Thanks to Rifco Theatre Company who nominated me!

In a year full of dreadful news, it has been a joyful escape to be part of this group, meeting (on Zoom) every fortnight, together with Chris Bush and Jennifer Bakst, discussing what we all love doing. For the first two hours, we’re led through a masterclass with Chris Bush, who’s knowledge of playwriting is incredibly insightful. Her warmth, along with Jennifer’s, have always made the sessions feel wholly supportive and safe. For the remaining time, we have a guest speaker, different each week.

I was born and brought up in Bradford and moved to London in 2006 to train as an actor at RADA. I always thought I would end up writing one day and in 2013 I started putting pen to paper on what became my debut play Combustion, which premiered and toured in 2017. Since then, I’ve been working of several commissions/projects with: The National Youth Theatre, Tamasha, Rifco Theatre Company, Watford Palace Theatre, Bush Theatre, Birmingham Rep and Turtle Key Arts. Alongside this, I’ve been part of various writers’ groups including the BBC Comedy Room.

The particular session I’m going focus on here is the one we had with director Emily Lim. Emily specialises in creating community work and working with non-professional performers. This was particularly helpful for me, as I am currently writing a community play for Birmingham Rep Theatre.

One thing Chris had mentioned earlier, which I agree with, is that there’s often a misconception that community plays are ‘easier’ to write and that they are often given to lesser experienced writers. Chris confirmed, having worked on a few herself, that this was not the case. Quite the opposite was the case. Emily in turn, stressed the same point and it was inspiring to hear her speak so passionately about making work for community groups, young people and non-professional performers.

We focused on two plays which Emily had worked on: an adaptation of Pericles written by Chris and Brainstorm which Emily worked on with Ned Glasier and Company Three. It was interesting to explore work created for a huge ensemble community cast. In the version of Pericles, there were approximately two hundred! Brainstorm was a very unique and interesting piece by and for young people about teenage brain development:

Inside every adolescent brain, 86 billion neurons connect and collide to produce the most frustrating, chaotic and exhilarating changes that will ever happen to us.

Brainstorm is a unique theatrical investigation into how teenagers’ brains work, and why they’re designed by evolution to be the way they are. Created by Ned Glasier and Emily Lim with Company Three (formerly Islington Community Theatre), in collaboration with neuroscientists Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Dr Kate Mills, the play is designed to be created and performed by a company of teenagers, drawing directly on their personal experiences.

What was special about the piece is that it also contains a blueprint following the text. This blueprint contains a series of exercises, resources and activities to help schools, youth-theatre groups and young companies create and perform their own version of Brainstorm. So when working your own group, they will feel even more so, that the piece belongs to them and is personal to them.

The care and respect Emily had for her performers in her work was admirable. Everybody had to feel not just included, but also necessary for the piece to work. This made me interrogate my own commission for Birmingham Rep and question if I too had created a piece which would allow every cast member to feel this way. Certainly, in my future draft I would try and implement this as much as possible.

I had been given the task to create a piece about the demonstrations against LGBT+ inclusive education in Birmingham schools, which took place in 2019. I was told to create a piece which would be suitable for performers of all ages, including children, up to a number of 50. I had a question for Emily about how you balance creating material for a large cast, currently on a rough estimate, but also ensure that you as the playwright are creating a piece of quality and with no ‘excess flab’. Her helpful response was that as the specific cast number was currently unknown, I should focus on the quality of the piece, make the piece as strong as possible, but also to remain flexible. During the rehearsal process, I may need to be able to easily adapt things.

Following the session, I came away with more respect and passion for community work and was eager to crack on with my own commission.

Thank you Emily.

www.theasifkhan.com

Sonia is a writer and theatre maker from Manchester, and is the Nationwide Voices writer on attachment with Kiln Theatre in London. Sonia has worked with Kiln Theatre, Paines Plough, Company Three, Donmar Warehouse, and Hull Truck. She was a member of the Royal Court’s Long Form Writer’s Group and the BBC Writersroom Comedy Room and has written on a number of CBBC and CBeebies shows. She is currently co-writing a new audio comedy-drama for Whistledown Productions and Audible and is under commission with HighTide and the Royal Exchange.

Here are her reflections on the fourth and fifth Nationwide Voices sessions with guest speaker Lyndsey Turner:

Lyndsey Turner came in for a couple of Nationwide Voices sessions to hear our play ideas and give us some feedback, and all I have to say is this:
Please can I keep her brain in a box and take it out whenever I don’t know what the hell I’m doing which is always.

Basically she’s a wizard and I don’t think I can fully do her big brain justice, but I’ve tried to boil down what I learned from her into a few take-home lessons:

1 – Pitches

Start your pitch with an image.

When it was my turn to pitch, I did my usual explanation of all the things that had led me to wanting to tell this story: “I’m interested in x, I saw this documentary about y, I’ve always wanted to make a play that does blah blah blah.” About 8 mins into me explaining myself and telling her my whole life story, I finally gave her a clear image of a specific moment in the play. And then it all started to fall in to place. Lyndsey reflected that everything before that image was “interesting and yeah we all find memory fascinating but…what’s the play going to be Sonia?”

I think the lesson I learned here is this: when you’re pitching an idea to someone you don’t have to build them a ramp and walk them slowly into it. Trust your idea enough to dive right in and if it’s good enough, you’ll float.

2 – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

This is a 5-tier pyramid of human needs that Lyndsey used to illustrate the kind of things our plays might grapple with. (Definitely worth a google).

At the bottom of the pyramid we have Physiological Needs: air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, reproduction. Next up we have Safety Needs: security, employment, health, home. Physiological and Safety Needs make up our Basic Needs as human beings. Needs that might feature heavily in your play if your characters are fleeing war or have lost their home.

Next up we have Love and Belonging Needs: friendship, intimacy, family, sense of connection. And Esteem Needs: respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom. Lots of plays sit in these categories of course. These Psychological Needs are rich and relatable.

And finally, at the top of the pyramid, we have Self-Actualisation Needs: the desire to become the most that one can be. I think privilege must sneak in here somewhere because you’re probably not worrying too much about this unless you have everything else sorted out. A character who is fleeing war might be more concerned with shelter and safety than they might be about reaching self-actualisation.

Lyndsey encouraged us to identify what tier or tiers of the pyramid our plays sit in. All of it is rich territory, but perhaps if your play solely sits in Self-Actualisation, it might only be relevant to a privileged few.

3 – Who Is in the Cockpit of your Play? What Fuel is in the Tank?

Lyndsey didn’t say exactly this, so pardon the paraphrasing, but what I took from what she did say was: make the fuel of your play a juicy mix of stuff. If, for example, the only fuel in the tank is self-actualisation, it might be a boring flight.

4 – Is your Play a Play…

…or is it a documentary/ dance piece/ tweet/ blog? Don’t drag a 500-word comment-is-free article out into a whole play. You have to have more to say than that, more questions to ask, more layers to pull apart.

5 – Weather Systems

Lyndsey talked about weather systems and I got well into it. Before your play even starts, you have this whole weather system that is moving about waiting to land where you are. You might have the housing crisis coming in from the east and generational trauma coming in from the west. These things are hanging in the air of your play. What happens when they collide?

So thank you Lyndsey. These are just a few gems from those two sessions and I hope I’ve not got anything horribly wrong but what I can say for certain is this: I promise to never open a pitch with “So I’m really interested in memory” ever again.

Emily White is one of the six writers participating in the inaugural year of our Nationwide Voices programme. This is a blog post with her thoughts and reflections on the third Nationwide Voices session, around the topic of adaptation, that she experienced back in September… Enjoy!

So first a bit about me and how I came to be a part of the program. 

I originally trained as an actress at RADA many moons ago, and after many years treading the boards, I packed it in and discovered my love of writing as a mature student doing an MA in Theatre Writing, Directing and Performance at York Uni.  After my graduation ceremony I skived off my call centre job for four days and wrote the first half hour of Pavilion.  The play is set in my hometown in Wales and takes place over one night in a local pavilion where the Friday night disco takes place. It’s a play about austerity but it’s also a big Welsh night out full of larger than life characters: a play about a specific place but with broader national themes at its heart.   

After several drafts and some good feedback, I staged a rehearsed reading at RADA for an invited audience.  Tamara Harvey the Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd came to the reading, and over a year later I received a phone call out of the blue to say that she would like to produce the play.  I was over the moon to say the least.  We went into rehearsals in 2019 with Tamara directing and the show was a big success for the theatre, but it didn’t get the opportunity to be seen by audiences outside of Wales.  So, when ETT got in touch with Tamara about nominating a writer to be part of the Nationwide Voices program she gave me another exciting, out of the blue phone call and I got to be over the moon all over again!   

The sessions all take place over Zoom which takes a little getting used to. Full disclosure: I don’t anger easily except in two scenarios; watching the news and working out how to use new technology.  I am a person that routinely shouts at technological inanimate objects. My partner often finds me incandescent with rage at my poor laptop. Usually it’s the internet I should really be angry at and my laptop is entirely innocent of all charges. However, I am happy to report that Zoom is far superior to Skype (which sends me into a state of apoplexy whenever I try and use it) and the sessions have all run smoothly... so far.   

Each session starts with a masterclass by the incredibly insightful and talented Chris Bush, and then moves on to incorporate a guest speaker to focus on a particular aspect of playwriting.  This week Chris was talking to us about adaptation and the guest speaker was the lovely Chinonyerem Odimba, who now has several successful adaptations under her belt. 

When you’re a new writer just starting out in the world of theatre, the thought of writing an adaptation of another writer’s work can appear daunting.  Especially a famous, admired writer that the audience is going to be very familiar with already.  And yet this is often what emerging playwrights are asked to do by theatres that view staging their original writing as being too risky.  For this reason, Chris advised us, it is always a good idea to go into theatre meetings with an adaptation pitch up your sleeve along with your original ideas.   

These adaptations can take the form of new translations/modernisations of existing plays that are originally written in another language (Chekhov, Ionesco, Ibsen, Euripides etc.), or adaptations of books or films for the stage.  In the previous session we had all been set the homework of thinking of a play we would like to adapt and then pitched them to the group.  Everyone approaches pitching differently but my take–away from this exercise was that you should know your material well and be able to answer these three questions: 

1. Why is this a good version to be doing now?  
2. Why am I the person to do it? 
3. Why my version instead of one of the other versions already out there? 

Chino then logged in and spoke about her experiences with adaptations and the different approaches she took.  For example, when adapting Oliver Twist, she updated the story to the modern day and wrote a completely new story and dialogue, and only kept the shape of the original and the main characters.  For The Prince and the Pauper, she kept the story and the language in its original time period and made it into a musical, heightening/fore fronting certain elements to say what she wanted to say.  For both she had a definite idea of who her audience was – The Prince and the Pauper was a Christmas show and Twist was a school tour. 

She was nervous the first time she was approached to write an adaptation so gave some helpful tips on the practical considerations once you’ve got the gig and your first thought is ‘HELP!  Where do I begin?’ 

Chino starts off by reading the book three times and figuring out what the writer is trying to say to the reader and the world, and then plans what she wants to keep and what she’s going to let go.  She makes the big decisions about where she’s taking the story, what characters are staying etc. and makes notes on each chapter, breaking the story down into manageable units.  She does her homework on that period of history even if she’s going to update the story.  Basically: plan, plan, plan.  Also knowing what audience your adaptation is aimed at is important, as that places certain restrictions on the writing.   

Another useful exercise she suggested was to think about what would happen if you told the story through another character’s eyes?  If each key character became the protagonist, how would that change the story?   

Her final word of warning: be careful what stories you choose to adapt.  The source material should resonate with you as a writer so that you can bring your politics to the adaptation.  Writers bring themselves to whatever they write; if you can’t bring yourself and your voice to the adaptation, then maybe it’s not a good fit. 

All in all, I came out of the session feeling more confident that I could take on an adaptation and knowing how I would set about it.  Hopefully I’ll get another one of those out of the blue phone calls sometime soon!  In the meantime, I look forward to our next session and seeing everyone’s big smiley faces looking back at me from my laptop.  It’s not the same as sitting in a room together, having a good old chin wag before the session and a ‘getting to know you’ pint afterwards, but it will have to do for now.  Good old Zoom…god I barely recognise myself…   

John Rwothomack is one of the six writers participating in the inaugural year of our Nationwide Voices programme. This is a blog post with his thoughts and reflections on the first two Nationwide Voices sessions that he experienced back in August and September… Enjoy!

Hello,

So it might be useful for me to start by introducing myself. I am John Rwothomack from Uganda, now based in Sheffield and proud to belong to both. My journey to being part of this incredible initiative that ETT has put together, I guess began when I went to drama school. After graduating as an actor from Rose Bruford in 2015, I moved back to Sheffield. Where, although I trained as an actor, thanks to Theatre Deli I found myself directing Bad Blood Blues by Paul Sirett. Having somehow successfully managed this, the next challenge was to write a play. A challenge that was overcome by the completion of Far Gone, a one-man show that follows the life of a child soldier which I both wrote and performed. I very much enjoyed writing the play and it made me want to write more. Not being a classically trained writer – if there’s such a thing – the opportunity for Nationwide Voices could not have come at a better time. I applied with a hope of course to be chosen, but being actually chosen is very humbling. Thank you Sheffield Theatres for trusting and putting me forward.  

The first session, which now seems like a century ago, was such bliss. It flew by so quickly. Of course, as with any first day in the theatre scene, we cracked the day open with meet and greets, coffees, teas, nervous laughters and zoom etiquettes. Then came one of the moments I was looking forward to most: getting to know everyone. From Sheffield, to London, to Leeds, to Wales, to Watford we introduced ourselves. The first ever playwrights of ETTs’ Nationwide Voices. It did feel honourable to be part of such a great team of talented and diverse people. I will not say much, but from the people I’ve had the privilege to meet in this cohort, I am very excited to see what plays will be manufactured by June. Theatre, you are in for a treat.  

I didn’t really know what to expect in terms of the first session. Prior to it I was thinking – this is going to be an introductory session, get to know everyone, and the plan for the scheme. We did do all that, but what was quite a pleasant surprise was that after that, course leader Chris Bush jumped straight into it with an exceptional session on structure. I am predominately coming from an acting background, and as such I am used to following through the journey of my character from the beginning of the play to the end, working out what their purpose is in that particular play. I have written a play, which was done out of necessity as it was felt and advised by a playwright I approached that I was the best person to write it. The writing process was rather straightforward in terms of structure. A beginning, middle and end. Like any other story right?

No, said Chris Bush, there’s more to it than just that. For example, there is a five points system/five stages that form the frame of a well structured arc of a three-act play. These are like: 

1. Everything is Normal – this is where we establish the daily normality of the world and the introduction of main character.  

2. The World Changes – an event/s occurs that changes the norm; challenges and forces the main character to go on a journey. 

3. The Plot Thickens – more challenges arise on this journey. 

4. The Cards Are Shown – the height of the challenges, the point of highest drama, solutions have to be found, the moment of change, discovery. 

5. The Dust Settles – the new normal; how different is it now having ventured on this journey?

As somebody who is not traditionally a writer, it was great to be walked through this structural method that someone with Chris’ experience has. I was introduced to a system of structure that not only made my understanding of the arc of a story much clearer, it was also lovely to know that I had applied some of those techniques in my writing. However, it was done unknowingly.  Here lies the difference between skillfully applying the necessary ingredients to a story’s structure and arriving to it accidentally. I left the session feeling much better equipped with the understanding of structure, which I’ll definitely be applying to my next writing project. Well, let’s wait and see how it turns out.  

The second session was quite exciting. We had none other than guest speaker Rebecca Lenkiewicz rock up and grace us with her knowledge, experience and some incredible advice. Filled with laughter and absolute honesty, this was a session that gave a wider understanding of playwrights’ professional life beyond the creative aspects. From navigating your way around companies as big as The National Theatre, to TV, to smaller theatres, I personally took so much from Rebecca. One thing that stood out particularly was an exercise on character she offered. The exercise:

Without spoken lines, describe a character getting dressed in the morning, and undressed at night. And then without words again, put someone else in the same space watching them dress and undress. The idea here is that people are both body and mind, the two work in conjunction, but we often describe what actions we do differently with someone else watching us.

If the character is not a child, put them in a scenario in their childhood and describe what they do as a child.

This proved to be a very useful exercise for a particular character I’m working on at the moment.  Having such a vibrant, transparent and giving writer with such vast experience as Rebecca was beyond perfect for this.  

Writing in any capacity is challenging, but to make a career out of it, that calls for a certain type of person crazy enough to venture into it. Having Chris lead us through these sessions, and hearing from writers like Rebecca, makes it seem possible; hard, but not impossible. It has been a great few sessions so far. I’m very much looking forward what the next ones bring. Whatever they bring, I am certain that six new exciting plays will emerge out of Nationwide Voices.