Ideas were shared and creativity was unleashed in our final workshop of the 2024 series!
ETL’s last workshop of the year took place on Saturday 9th November. The workshop was an introductory exploration of scriptwriting, with an emphasis on texts for performance in the theatre. The majority of the participants were new to scriptwriting, and workshop leader Sam Kioni Roberts was very excited to let them try out ideas and take their first steps as playwrights. By the end of the day participants would have written, either as individuals or as a part of a small group of two or three people, a confrontational scene between a story’s protagonist and antagonist.
Sam began by asking the group what they most enjoyed about theatre, whether as an audience member or as someone involved in making a show. Many people’s replies revolved around the fact that no two theatre-performances can ever be exactly the same because theatre is a live art form. This makes stories told through the medium of theatre all the more compelling and exciting to watch, but it can be a challenge to write a script that is truly engaging for audiences. Sam made sure to emphasise how important it is to keep your audience in mind when writing, and to remember to write something that you know you would want to watch, otherwise audiences couldn’t be blamed if they didn’t come to see the play!
After talking about how stories are structured, and how to create tension in a story by introducing stakes and emotional conflict, the group began to focus on creating the characters which would form the main basis of many of the exercises Sam had planned. Without compelling characters, stories would have no heart to them, and audiences would have nothing to properly connect with. Sam spoke with the group about how conflicts between characters often become the most exciting parts of many stories and introduced the concept of the hero and the villain, or the protagonist and antagonist (which are less moralistic terms). We all know about these characters, but not everyone knows how to use them to help you write a story.
Sam asked the group to brainstorm their own story ideas, as well as imagining their own protagonists and antagonists. He then brought in several pre-prepared examples of scenes which involved a confrontation, ranging from a legendary film scene between a cop and a criminal as performed by Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, a husband and wife discovering the truth about one another in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Bilbo Baggins meeting Smaug the Dragon in The Hobbit, to the first proper meeting of a spy and an assassin in Killing Eve. Without looking for a value judgement, Sam asked the participants to split into small groups and analyse these scenes, discussing why they were compelling, or not, and what genre the scenes were in. He also made a point of saying that actors and directors have a habit of changing the mood of scenes to suit them, so if there is something you really want as a writer you have to be clear. Using the scenes and the discussions about them as inspiration, Sam then asked the group to delve even deeper into character creation and continue building protagonists and antagonists, thinking about their character’s strengths and weaknesses, but also about the character’s ideal rival, and the kinds of stories they would fit into.
After this, it was time to get writing. Participants were given the choice of working alone or in small groups of two or three, and were asked to write the first draft of a scene that depicted a confrontation between a protagonist and an antagonist. Sam gave occasional advice, and was delighted to see a variety of different ideas in varying genres emerge from the creative impulses of the participants. There were deep family dramas involving dark mysteries, there were fights over what to do with lottery winnings and there was even a heated discussion over the colour of sofas in Ikea.
Sam encouraged all the participants to share their ideas with the group, proving the benefit of a community approach to scriptwriting. In the end, this was a brilliant workshop that showed how scriptwriting doesn’t have to be a lonely pursuit where a playwright sits in front of their computer all day long – it can be something joyful, where creative people help each other maintain momentum and share constructive ideas for one another’s work. ETL looks forward to developing this workshop further in the near future!
Some of the lovely feedback we received from participants:
“I learned a few new perspectives and really appreciated the atmosphere.”
“I wanted to say a huge thanks for the workshop. I absolutely loved it – and as someone who had not done it before, I felt so relaxed the whole time. Also, I want to personally thank Sam for providing us with a safe and encouraging environment.”
“It was absolutely delightful to participate.”
“I saw a story unfold in front of our pen(s), so to speak. When we changed one element, another started moving, getting the whole skeleton into a new position overall. That was so awesome to experience for me. It was wonderful working in groups and bouncing ideas off each other. I really enjoyed things getting out of hand, so to speak, which does not happen in the same way when I write on my own and sitting in the same spot. Everyone was very open-minded, kind, constructive and creative. Especially insightful was for me the deconstruction of the scenes from movies/plays/series. I also felt the choice of these scripts was great to learn from and compare.
The ‘expert’ content was woven neatly into the whole process without ‘preaching’ or ‘presenting’ drama class 101 textbook contents. It was very perceivable that a person with experience and know-how on the matter was in charge of the workshop; and I really enjoyed how Sam facilitated the whole process and passed on his knowledge.“
“I would like to thank you for organising such an amazing scriptwriting workshop, and especially Sam for all the amazing discussions, tips, insights and help! The whole structure of the workshop was well thought and beautifully executed. I loved every minute of it and enjoyed writing short scene in the end. I left with so much knowledge, interesting ideas, inspiration and motivation to write more!
Thank you once again for such an amazing opportunity!”
“It was really a great day. Vielen tausend Dank!”
