Dundee’s Rep Theatre has been working with Glasgow-based writer Douglas Maxwell on a project called First Stage to encourage senior pupils from Harris Academy, St Paul’s Academy and Menzieshill High School to pen bite-sized plays for performance.
Since autumn, the young people from Dundee have been visited by Douglas once a week to help them conceive, plan and develop their scripts, and they have also worked with directors and actors from the Rep Ensemble, who will give a script-in-hand presentation of the pieces tomorrow evening.
Douglas (36) was born in Girvan on the Ayrshire coast. For a decade he has been one of the most popular and produced playwrights in the country. Last year alone saw three of his new plays tour Scotland and abroad and his iconic play Decky Does A Bronco was also reprised by Glasgow theatre company Grid Iron for a tenth anniversary tour, visiting Dundee’s Lochee Park in July.
The First Stage project was inspired by Class Act, which has been running at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre for more than 20 years, and also in Glasgow. The annual event sees a creative team of professional actors and directors visiting schools to develop and rehearse students’ plays in preparation for performances.
Douglas worked with Class Act for 10 years and was so passionate about it, he and Jemima Levick The Rep’s associate director travelled to Russia to run a similar project.
“This project started back in autumn and I’ve been visiting each of the three schools every Thursday working with classes of senior pupils,” Douglas explained. “It’s quite similar to Class Act and I have always loved the buzz and each group has really responded to it.The groups can write whatever they want, everyone has written something, and it has all been very interesting so it’s been a joy.
“I don’t bring any ideas myself, it is all them, I maybe do a session or two about generating ideas where we look at photographs or read plays but that’s never the problem. It’s actually one of the reasons I do it, to remind myself just how exciting that is, and how young people look at stories. The subject matters are always completely surprising. “One thing I have noticed is there are quite a few horror plots and that must be to do with the fact that round about the time we started it was Hallowe’en it must have been in the air.
“Writing a 10-minute play doesn’t sound like much, but it’s actually quite a difficult thing to do. They worked with me for a couple of months then reached the point they always do when writing words on the page becomes a bit boring but then the professional actors and directors James Brining and Jemima Levick came out and worked with the kids and gave them suggestions over two weeks.
Douglas went on, “This is wonderful because these kids get to see their work performed on the Dundee stage by real actors who they have seen in productions like Sunshine on Leith and A Doll’s House. By this time, they know their plays a little, but hearing a professional read it is a huge leap up.
“They are also rehearsed in The Rep and so they can work with me, a director and an actor and discuss the script and what they want, so they have a real ownership of this.
“In theatre, playwrights aren’t paid much, but they do get a lot of respect and these young people get professional adults following their cues and see their work performed on the stage as they want it to be.
“The journey of putting a play on the stage is a really empowering one you can go from having no ideas and a blank page to sitting in a room with 300 people watching it there right in front of you. It also teaches lessons about practising, work, rehearsals and having the guts to do something like that.”
Douglas said that in his experience working with Class Act in Edinburgh, the performance itself is always a real thrill. “We have the pupils sitting in the audience and we mix the plays up instead of doing them school by school, so they don’t know when their play is coming on. We project up the name of|the school and the play and then a big cheers goes up.
“It’s a great night. Some of the short plays are very deep and meaningful while others are humorous, horrors and romantic. I don’t censor them, either. I try to steer them away from certain things and, actually, they didn’t produce anything that was needing censored really!
“It’s all about what they have written and it’s about giving them freedom of expression. This has obvious benefits, there’s language and writing benefits and the work goes into their English folios. A lot of those taking park have even expressed an interest in joining the Dundee Rep’s Youth Theatre. It’s been a joy working up in Dundee.
“It’s the first time it’s been run in the city and I hope they do it again. The kids have loved it and the teachers seem to be enjoying it.”
Douglas said he would have loved to have been part of a project like this as a youngster. “I took part in musicals like most people did at school, but we didn’t even have a drama group. It wasn’t until I joined Stirling University that I joined a drama group then started my own wee musical society.
“When I graduated, I had written a play for my dissertation, and I decided and I wanted to do that. I had to write 21 plays between making that decision and having my first professional play put on.
“Last year was my 10th anniversary of being professional and I was the most produced writer in Scotland in 2010, too.”
Douglas is about to start rehearsals for a new play he has co-written with fellow Scots Johnny McKnight and D.C. Jackson.
Small Town is a comedy that tells the story of three Ayrshire towns where the water has been contaminated. Each writer creates a theatrical appetiser set in their own hometown then the audience can vote for one of three possible endings.
The production opens at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow on February 15 before touring to venues such as the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, The Lemontree in Aberdeen, The Byre Theatre in St Andrews and Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre.
Douglas went on, “This is wonderful because these kids get to see their work performed on the Dundee stage by real actors who they have seen in productions like Sunshine on Leith and A Doll’s House. By this time, they know their plays a little, but hearing a professional read it is a huge leap up.
“They are also rehearsed in The Rep and so they can work with me, a director and an actor and discuss the script and what they want, so they have a real ownership of this.
“In theatre, playwrights aren’t paid much, but they do get a lot of respect and these young people get professional adults following their cues and see their work performed on the stage as they want it to be.
“The journey of putting a play on the stage is a really empowering one you can go from having no ideas and a blank page to sitting in a room with 300 people watching it there right in front of you. It also teaches lessons about practising, work, rehearsals and having the guts to do something like that.”
Douglas said that in his experience working with Class Act in Edinburgh, the performance itself is always a real thrill. “We have the pupils sitting in the audience and we mix the plays up instead of doing them school by school, so they don’t know when their play is coming on. We project up the name of|the school and the play and then a big cheers goes up.
“It’s a great night. Some of the short plays are very deep and meaningful while others are humorous, horrors and romantic. I don’t censor them, either. I try to steer them away from certain things and, actually, they didn’t produce anything that was needing censored really!
“It’s all about what they have written and it’s about giving them freedom of expression. This has obvious benefits, there’s language and writing benefits and the work goes into their English folios. A lot of those taking park have even expressed an interest in joining the Dundee Rep’s Youth Theatre. It’s been a joy working up in Dundee.
“It’s the first time it’s been run in the city and I hope they do it again. The kids have loved it and the teachers seem to be enjoying it.”
Douglas said he would have loved to have been part of a project like this as a youngster. “I took part in musicals like most people did at school, but we didn’t even have a drama group. It wasn’t until I joined Stirling University that I joined a drama group then started my own wee musical society.
“When I graduated, I had written a play for my dissertation, and I decided and I wanted to do that. I had to write 21 plays between making that decision and having my first professional play put on.
“Last year was my 10th anniversary of being professional and I was the most produced writer in Scotland in 2010, too.”
Douglas is about to start rehearsals for a new play he has co-written with fellow Scots Johnny McKnight and D.C. Jackson.
Small Town is a comedy that tells the story of three Ayrshire towns where the water has been contaminated. Each writer creates a theatrical appetiser set in their own hometown then the audience can vote for one of three possible endings.
The production opens at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow on February 15 before touring to venues such as the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, The Lemontree in Aberdeen, The Byre Theatre in St Andrews and Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre.
Douglas went on, “This is wonderful because these kids get to see their work performed on the Dundee stage by real actors who they have seen in productions like Sunshine on Leith and A Doll’s House. By this time, they know their plays a little, but hearing a professional read it is a huge leap up.
“They are also rehearsed in The Rep and so they can work with me, a director and an actor and discuss the script and what they want, so they have a real ownership of this.
“In theatre, playwrights aren’t paid much, but they do get a lot of respect and these young people get professional adults following their cues and see their work performed on the stage as they want it to be.
“The journey of putting a play on the stage is a really empowering one you can go from having no ideas and a blank page to sitting in a room with 300 people watching it there right in front of you. It also teaches lessons about practising, work, rehearsals and having the guts to do something like that.”
Douglas said that in his experience working with Class Act in Edinburgh, the performance itself is always a real thrill. “We have the pupils sitting in the audience and we mix the plays up instead of doing them school by school, so they don’t know when their play is coming on. We project up the name of|the school and the play and then a big cheers goes up.
“It’s a great night. Some of the short plays are very deep and meaningful while others are humorous, horrors and romantic. I don’t censor them, either. I try to steer them away from certain things and, actually, they didn’t produce anything that was needing censored really!
“It’s all about what they have written and it’s about giving them freedom of expression. This has obvious benefits, there’s language and writing benefits and the work goes into their English folios. A lot of those taking park have even expressed an interest in joining the Dundee Rep’s Youth Theatre. It’s been a joy working up in Dundee.
“It’s the first time it’s been run in the city and I hope they do it again. The kids have loved it and the teachers seem to be enjoying it.”
Douglas said he would have loved to have been part of a project like this as a youngster. “I took part in musicals like most people did at school, but we didn’t even have a drama group. It wasn’t until I joined Stirling University that I joined a drama group then started my own wee musical society.
“When I graduated, I had written a play for my dissertation, and I decided and I wanted to do that. I had to write 21 plays between making that decision and having my first professional play put on.
“Last year was my 10th anniversary of being professional and I was the most produced writer in Scotland in 2010, too.”
Douglas is about to start rehearsals for a new play he has co-written with fellow Scots Johnny McKnight and D.C. Jackson.
Small Town is a comedy that tells the story of three Ayrshire towns where the water has been contaminated. Each writer creates a theatrical appetiser set in their own hometown then the audience can vote for one of three possible endings.
The production opens at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow on February 15 before touring to venues such as the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, The Lemontree in Aberdeen, The Byre Theatre in St Andrews and Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre.