I will keep this up...

Yes, I will.

So, rewrites... hmmmm.

The one thing everyone has is a horror rewrite story, they're often:
'apocryphal': 'they made me change him from a one footed, sixteen nippled, blue alien into Samantha Morton.
'disquieting': 'they liked the Viet-Cong angle, but wanted to set it in New Zealand'.
or... 'laughable': 'I wrote "in a moment" and those bastards changed it to "in a minute", well, I pulled the script'.

Now, maybe I'm missing the point, but surely a changed 'you know' to a 'well, you know' isn't going to destroy your character arch.

So far in: I have changed the odd 'lad' to 'son' to 'fella'; I've rewritten dialogue from a Yorkshire dialect to a more standard dialect (for a actor whose first language is not English); and I've rewritten the end of the play several times. In fact, the last ten or so pages have been done away with, tinkered, and totally reworked pretty much every week for the last two months.

Maybe, I've sold out my writerly vision (have I balls). Maybe, I'm not strong-willed enough (double balls). MAYBE, the script wasn't up to much in the first place (triple... well, maybe). OR... maybe, the play is all the better for my listening to others.

I think that's the one. It may get frustrating, it may seem like you're losing control, but these people are directors, actors, and writers themselves, so to stick your fingers in your ears at them is just plain daft. Rewriting for me is a brand-spanking new creative process in itself. You get to talk about this thing you've written, with people who are (or at least should be, if they're in the room) genuinely enthused by what you've created, and you get to make it proper loads better.

Rewriting is the new writing as far as I can tell.

--------------

Oh, we now have a stage manager, Kate Fallon. She is lovely and is writing down blocking (which should be called 'where people have moved or will move to') so I don't have to... superb.

Tomorrow, we get props and a bit of the set.

In a bit and that.

Page 27...

Say it quietly, we did three new pages without the director...

Yes, we naughty boys and a girl have been rehearsing today sans director. I pretended to know what I was talking about, but everyone saw through my intelligence rouse.

What have a learnt today? Eh... that one page of script is NOT one minute... it's about two.

Tonight, I have two plays on here. The Hotbed Festival looks lovely, I'm sure you agree. My debut and my second debut (perhaps my penultimate play?) will be performed without me in attendance. I'm a bit upset really, but hardly precious... I only wrote them on Tuesday. So I hope Cambridge enjoys two pages of me and the audience vote one of mine into the grand finale, thus giving me an excuse to go down on Saturday.

If you're going to be there or have been, let me know what it was like... and why you didn't vote for me.

Monday is when we get proper serious and that. We have a potential stage manager coming down and we will get to the end... he says.

Tuesday is when Anton (music, beard, heart-breaker) and Joel (techy, sound and lighting, father of one Louis Fernando Clements) come down and we start talking about the soundtrack that Anton has so kindly not quite written for us yet.

Right, that'll do.

Good luck everyone, see you Monday...

Desperately Seeking Susan...

Or Brian, or Terry, or Duncan, or Phylis... Yes, we are looking for someone, a Stage Manager to be precise.

So, if you are, or know someone who is, a stage manager then come a be a stage manager in the same room that we're being actors, writers, directors and that.

Here's a link you can pass on (please note, I put 'date time', instead of 'day time' - I'm not using this to get dates, it was a genuine error, or Freudian slip).

I'm doing rewrites today, mainly edits, mainly getting rid of my excessive stage directions. Example:

DON: Here's your drink

HE GIVES THE LAD A GLASS

THE LAD: Thanks.

HE DRINKS.

DON: You staying long.

DON RUBS HIS LEFT EYE. THE LAD TIES HIS RIGHT SHOELACE.

Well, not really, but they're not far off.

Hopefully, we should have a lovely little website in a week or so, if I can convince Paul Gorton that my play is more important that his PhD... I can't, it isn't, he won't.

Well then, back to the script and my big DELETE button...

Rehearsal Uno...

Hiya,

We're all very excited here at Fleet towers. I say we, it's just me sat here on my lonesome.

Today was superb.

Back stories are solved, ten pages have been thoroughly 'got through', and Lloyd had a full Sunday dinner (Yorkshire pudding and everything) on a Wednesday.

It's funny, you expect, as a writer, to either hate every second of hearing your words back at you, or to become so precious about them you should probably just play all the parts yourself. Instead, it was one of the most liberating, creative things I've ever experienced. Lines were changed, slagged, cut, flipped, and lost, all for the right reasons and all for the good of the play. If I could offer any advice to any writer (which I won't, because I know nothing) it would be to let the people your working with use your words. Let them change them. You're not omnipotent. It may well be that your 'things' can be replaced with 'stuff' and work so much better...

Tomorrow our three lovely actors go for costume fittings. When asked if I had anything I did or didnt want, I simply said 'no denim'. This was met as if I'd said 'no lycra'. OF COURSE NO DENIM, YOU IDIOT.

Anyway, this cup of tea won't drink itself,

Good night.

Websites and information that have 'metaphorically' gone 'live'.

Hello,

So, yeah. The 24:7 Theatre Festival website is now all new and that. Only, it's not to be found by typing in www.247theatrefestival.co.uk. Oh no, that would be beyond far too easy.

From the 24:7 site you can buy tickets from Quay Tickets and look at when you want to go and all the other plays and that. Also, there is a map of how to get to the venue, as you'd only know if you once worked for the Co-operative bank and have since retired. If you have, why not pop back to the old place and look-see what we've done to it.

In other news, today was our first read through with all the actors and me doing stage directions but forgetting to read them out because I was too busy enjoying myself. It's weird, I've only experienced one read through before and it was one of the most sickeningly embarrassing moments of my life... I actually apologised to at least one of the actors for wasting their time. But this was lovely. Maybe it's because the pressure's off as the play is already being put on... and, oooohh, it's going to be on in London in September too too (at the Hampstead Theatre). Or, maybe it's because I think this thing that I've written is worth being read out by other people... actors they're called. More specifically again, they're called Szilvi Naray-Davey, Lloyd Peters, and James French (who has no link because we got there first, so hands off, yeah).

Tomorrow is the first rehearsal thing. It's when we get the play 'on its feet'. 'ON ITS FEET'. No matter how many times I say it, I bloody love that phrase (makes you sound like a knob, though).

I shall let you know about how that goes tomorrow... or the next day after that.

A blog about a play about a thing about now.

So, we're putting on a play here.

Hopefully, if time is something that I can use freely, I'll be putting stuff up here what we have done. For instance, this is a trailer for the play which features the superb Malcolm Raeburn, who sadly isn't able to be 'Don' come July. 

Once there is more to say, I shall say it. Here.

Thanks for looking at this,

Sean Gregson.