We hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy at the moment – in the light of the current crisis, we just wanted to share an update on how we plan to continue our work to support new writers during these uncertain times.
Instagram Inspiration
As most of us will be spending a lot more time at home these days, we know you might thinking about getting some more writing done. With this mind, we’ll be sharing content to try and get you feeling inspired, keep you motivated and generally just cheer you up! We’ll be using Instagram as the platform for this and plan to share writing tips, exercises, prompts and ideas as often as we can (@londonplaywrights).
Opportunities
We’ll be continuing to source and post the latest playwriting opportunities. However, we’re anticipating the closure of theatres will affect some of the opportunities we currently have listed. We’ll be working hard to update our information as quickly as we can, but before you submit, we’d recommend checking with the organisers to make sure things are going ahead as planned. Do feel free to comment on posts or email us if you spot any inaccuracies (email: opportunities@londonplaywrightsblog.com).
Workshops
Our 2020 programme of workshops was due to kick off in June; as we’re not sure what will happen in the coming months, we have decided not to take any payments for bookings at this time . You can still register your interest by completing the booking form, and we’ll contact you nearer the time to let you know whether it’s going ahead. In the meantime, we’re looking into ways of getting our workshops online, so watch this space!
Members Content
Our members content will be going ahead as planned, including the Mastering Dramatic Structure online course which goes live on 7 May! Our online book club, Play Club is going full steam ahead so if you find yourself with a little bit of extra time for reading – join us for our first play of the year, which is Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones.
Member meetups
This year, one of our aims was to create more opportunities for writers to have their work performed, and we planned to combine our members meetups with rehearsed readings and workshops. We know we won’t be able to do this quite as planned right now, and we’ll be putting our members meetups on hold for the time being. Instead, we’ll be launching a rolling submissions policy for our members – the purpose of this will be to identify writers who we can work with and develop at a later date (details of this will be live on the members site soon).
Support
We’re a small organisation and we rely on the support of our members, readers, and wider community to keep us going. We hope you will continue to support us throughout these difficult times and likewise, if we can do anything to support you, please get in touch! Like everyone in the theatre industry, we are saddened and concerned about the closures of theatres, and the future of theatre beyond this crisis – and the work of fringe theatres and companies in particular are at the core of what we do. Whilst our resources are limited, we’d like to offer our support to theatres and companies, and if you think we can help your organisation at all, please let us know by emailing contact@londonplaywrights.org.
Thanks for your continued support and we wish you all good health. Here’s to working together and looking after each other!
The LPW team
Great to read such a positive response. And a silver lining to the current cloud in that those of us on your list who are a long way from London can more easily participate.
Thank you Kit! And looking forward to reaching more of our members outside of London!
You are amazing! Your proactive approach is infectious! Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for your support Catherine!