Looking for some last minute advice as to what makes a winning play?
Last year's winner, BEN MUSGRAVE, author of Pretend You Have Buildings, will be hosting a live webchat here on Wednesday, June 4th, from 12:30 to 2pm.
As always, if you can't make the chat, post questions on this site or e-mail them to bruntwood@royalexchange.co.uk.
Can't wait for this - I saw the very first night of this play and thought it was a true wonder of theatre that 90's Essex was inside a building in Manchester!
Posted by: welshhelena | June 02, 2008 at 09:57 PM
Hi folks -
Three questions for your good selves:
1 - I'm interested in asking Ben how he's found the experience of Bruntwood success and whether things have become easier or harder in the wake of last year's presentation of his work, given that he's no longer an anonymous writer scribbling away... Is there a pressure to excel? How is the new play going?
2 - Also, I loved "Buildings" on the page but didn't get to see the finished work - Ben talks passionately about the metaphysical quality that fills up the space of the Exchange's main hall. I very much enjoyed reading his play and wonder to what extent the poetic quality of the language as it's presented on the page was lost (or retained) in its transition to the stage. How close was the final staging to what he imagined? Obviously nothing beats the experience of seeing plays produced but "Buildings" has an elegiac quality that makes it work on paper extremely well - did this quality, in his opinion, make it to the final performance?
3 - As an inveterate tweaker, I'd be tempted to look back a year later and continue to want to change things - has Ben left "Buildings" to rest? How does he feel about the play now, a year later?
Many thanks and best wishes,
John Davidson
Dear John,
Ben's answered a lot of your questions in the transcript of his chat. He's put quite a lot of detail in his answers, so happy reading.
Bruntwood Competition Administrator
Posted by: John Davidson | June 04, 2008 at 12:26 PM