Looking for writing inspiration - here are a few ideas

So, as you may have noticed, we have two new script entry categories this year. The two new categories stem from our desire for Micro Theatre to keep thinking up new ways to present theatre. Ways for us to continue to surprise and challenge our audience.

As you can well imagine, I have many conversations about Micro Theatre, and one or two thoughts on the subject of script innovation. Have you thought about:-

One play in two parts. Or two plays, that when told together build to tell a larger story? The plays would be performed in the one venue, but spread across the programme.

That ‘Adapted Play’ doesn’t mean just adapting length and location. What about an alternate ending that surprises or questions. A beautiful example provided at out Writers Workshop was that with ‘Waiting for Godot’, and Godot could actually turn up!

And all those books in The Press, or Art Works at Curve, are they not sources of stories themselves. How could you lift those stories from the shelves and walls and bring them to life in the venue?

Which, in that strange circular way, brings me back to the conversation that first inspired me to create Micro Theatre. A Swedish friend told me of a performance she had attended near her home, it was Halloween (I think), and they were all squeezed into a café. A narrator stood to start telling a ghost story, and as the tale unfolded actors sitting in the audience stood and took over the dialogue of the characters until the narrated story became a play. I love this idea, it has all the intimacy, surprise, twisting of roles and art forms.

So please, don’t think that Micro Theatre is only interested in plays that are similar to others that we have already performed, or fit a traditional model. A great story is a great story. We have a wide range of people reading scripts and they all mark on the same criteria (on our website). We aim to make entertaining and innovative theatre, not same theatre, so lets go for it.