SCRIPTWRITING CLUB the students who had entered a first draft into the competition . There was an extraordinarily wide range of subjects , with students writing plays on everything from the Stonewall Riots to kidnapping dogs . It was very exciting to watch everyone ’ s work develop week by week and we were all incredibly proud of Marcel Steinbauer-Lewis ( Year 10 ) and Rosina White Belchere ( Lower Sixth ) for making it to the long list with their entry scripts .
Sophia Bartleet
For the first time , this year Sevenoaks students entered the National Theatre New Views playwriting programme and competition . With Penny Hargreaves , I ran informal weekly workshops where students read and discussed each other ’ s work and experimented with free-associating words and images , making recordings of friends and neighbours talking about their experiences of lockdown , and inventing conversations between random strangers in photographs .
Before Christmas , Dawn King , one of the National Theatre ’ s regular playwrights , held a wonderful workshop which inspired the students to go away and write first drafts of their plays over the Christmas holidays . In February the playwright Phoebe Eclair- Powell spoke to the students about how to write for the screen , and in March , Dawn King returned and ran one-to-one mentoring sessions with each of
We came together in Scriptwriting Club to write 30-minute scripts for the New Views Competition run by the National Theatre . As a group of eight students , we discussed how to formulate an exciting plot , how to create characters with depth and development and the importance of picking the right story to tell . Many of us had multiple different stories we wanted to tell , but in the end , we had to choose the one most suited to the task at hand . The writing of the scripts was both very difficult and very rewarding ; to see the story you have imagined come to life in your own words is hard work , but also incredibly exciting . To be able to bring to life the people and places in your mind is a beautiful experience ; but then comes the most difficult part – completing your script !
I found Scriptwriting Club an invaluable creative outlet during the pandemic ; it was a way to help process and manage my emotions and use them to create something I was proud of . ( I wrote a script on dementia from a young child ’ s point of view .) While it was not an easy time for any of us , having this group helped me to stay connected with friends and with my creativity during that isolating period . Moreover , I will always have something to look back at from that time – a snapshot of what was important to me then . Through being a part of the Scriptwriting Club , I learned a lot about what is important to me , but also about what aspects of their lives matter most to other people – and that has been the invaluable lesson .
Jennifer Thomas , Lower Sixth
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