I’ve started making notes about writing a play.
Aside from my role as Geppetto in a pantomime of Pinocchio a few years back*, the only theatrical background I can claim is a childhood littered with tearful Sunday school performances.
The seed idea is The Goddess’s, of course. It’s based on a situation in which I’m a mere bit player – a walk-on part, really – and it needed her bystanding perspective to recognise its dramatic potential.
What really turned me on to the idea/situation as a play was that mere moments after sketching the concept in four sentences, I could already see the final scene. Not long after that, having decided arbitrarily on a three-act structure, I had titles (names?) for each act. How freakin’ easy was that, baby?
Sixty minutes of theatre. Two, maybe three, ‘locations’ – all achievable (in my head at least) with a stage and some decent blocking. I wouldn’t mind a first draft by year’s end but I suspect this time next year would be more realistic.
Enthusiasm is high, tempered though it is with the acknowledgement of there being only seven days in any given week.
How hard could it be to write a play?**
* Highlight of my performance: having called out to the audience, “What shall I name my child?”, amongst the calls for Pinocchio was ‘Snoop Dogg’.
** Note to readers who have a vested interest in my workload: these are early early early days. Your script is in the mail.
