The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama is bringing all its new writing projects together under one umbrella – Writing House.
Alongside its flagship NEW writing festival, the College is launching Writing House workshops, giving new writers and directors the time, space and resources for new writing development.
Reality is one of the plays commissioned for NEW 2018. The main photo shows Albatross.
“The workshops will bring together an eclectic range of writers and directors,” said the College’s dramaturg, Jude Christian.
“We’re inviting artists to diversify the canon, and empower the next generation of actors.”
Writers and directors will be funded to workshop with the College’s acting students to develop ideas for new plays from their very earliest stages. These projects will then either be commissioned by the College into full productions, or form part of the development process for new work elsewhere.
The first workshops will start in May with writers and directors Sonali Bhattacharyya and Tinuke Craig, and Chris Monks and John O’Hara. Welsh writer and Bruntwood Prize finalist, Alan Harris will also be working with director Adele Thomas.
Adele Thomas directing NEW 2016’s All That I Am
Writing House Workshops will build and develop the College’s ground-breaking NEW festival, which brings some of the UK’s most exciting writers and directors to work with its final year students and create challenging, provocative and ambitious contemporary theatre.
“We’re really proud of the proliferation of brilliant female artists involved in RCWMD’s new writing work,” continues Jude,
“and we’re working hard to redress other historical imbalances in the voices which are heard on stage; to ensure that the theatre we’re making, and the people making it, are richly representative of Wales, the UK, and the world we live in today.”
Rehearsal shot from another of NEW 2018’s commissions, Spilt
“This project builds on the College’s active relationship with the industry,” continues David Bond, Head of Acting at RWCMD.
“Writing House workshops give our students further opportunities to work with experienced writers and directors on new plays, benefitting both their training and exposure.”
NEW 2018 transfers to London’s Gate Theatre next week, 3- 7 April.
Alongside the NEW festival the College has always been an active producer and supporter of new writing, to be performed by its final year acting students. Other commissions have included work by Gary Owen (who wrote the multi-award winning Iphigenia in Splott), Brad Birch, Elinor Cooke and Alistair McDowell.
Annes Elwy in Fe Ddaw’r Byd i Ben at the Sherman Theatre
Fe Ddaw’r Byd i Ben was commissioned from acclaimed playwright Dafydd James to provide a vehicle for five Welsh speaking student actors, staged in a co-production with The Sherman Theatre.
Among other playwrights, Hodge International Chair in Drama Simon Stephens regularly works with RWCMD students on projects he’s developing, most recently Rage, currently in development with Vicky Featherstone.
For the last 19 years the College has commissioned a new childrens puppetry script from writers including Dafydd James, Richard Hurford and Emma Williams.
Students are encouraged to write and perform their own work and this forms part of their acting course.
Editors notes
Recent graduate Ashna Rabheru adapted her second year EYA, Chips, performing it recently at London’s Theatre 503.
Katherine Pearce, recently up for a Best Female Performance award at the Offie regularly writes her own work.
Gwawr Loader and Elin Phillips have recently formed Criw Brwd, a bilingual theatre group.
Rebecca Durbin, inspired by her work with NEW when she was at RWCMD, created Play Theatre, championing an approach to new writing with its emphasis firmly on collaboration.
Other graduates who are now established writers include Ruth Jones, Sam Fletcher (now writing for Mel and Sue) and Katy Wix.
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