What I am up to in 2013

2012 has been a bumper year for me. Next year seems to be - if possible - even more exciting. Here are some of the highlights.

PROM: 'Four friends are reunited to remember when they were seventeen and beautiful. The end of school Prom. As memories are recalled and and secrets laid bare, a terrible truth is brought to light that will effect them for the rest of their lives. A new drama for teenagers about beauty and ugliness, promise and destruction, and about getting away with something you wish you never got away with'.

I am working with director Gareth Nicholls and Imaginate at the Tron in January. We will open in Spring 2014.

THE SPARE ROOM: 'Ali lives in Stephanie's spare room. He doesn't make any noise. He helps clean the flat. He helps find things that she loses. Ali knows everything about Stephanie and listens to all her troubles. But Stephanie doesn't know anything about Ali. She doesn't know that Ali has recently had his last asylum claim refused, been evicted from his flat and lives on handout's from the local church. And she definitely doesn't know that Ali lives in her spare room. Until today'.

This is a 45 minute rapid response Afternoon Drama for BBC Radio 4. I have six weeks to write it. It will be broadcast on February 20th at 2.15pm 2013.

MIKA AND ANNA-BELL GET MARRIED: development at the National Theatre of a new romantic comedy for 5 year olds about having a heart bigger than your boots. Co-written with Lu Kemp.

MY FRIEND SELMA: 'When I was 8 years old, my dad set up a charity to help people in danger escape the war in a place called Bosnia. He brought fifty of them over here on big coaches. We moved into an old boarding school with these refugees, to help them settle in. We lived there for four months. It was brilliant – there was a playground in my front garden, we had lots of visitors, people were always feeding me and I learnt to ride a bike! But the best thing about living there was meeting my friend Selma'.

A site specific piece for children aged 9+ about friendship, hospitality and learning to ride a bike. Written with JC Marshall and Victoria Beesley for Terra Incognita. We are developing it this year and will produce it in 2014.

DRAGON: And lastly and not leastly is my new play about grief, thunderstorms and flying things in a co-production with Vox Motus, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Beijing Childrens' Art Theatre. We open in Scotland in October. I'm so excited that my head might come off.

Phew.

And that's just the stuff I'm telling you about now. Please check the website for more details later in the year.

Second Draft

I love writing the first draft. The first draft is my favourite bit. It's where you get to make everything up, imagine a world and create characters and story. You use your heart and lungs and stomach for the first draft - it's pure guts (to steal a Steve Prefontaine running metaphor). I know that a lot of playwrights don't like the first draft but to me it's the best.

The second draft is something different. You've had the notes - probably lots of them - and now you have more paper than you know what to do with. You have to engage your brain now. You have to think. You can't just feel your way through the story, you have to be logical. 'This character has to do that because in scene two, he said he wouldn't and that reveals something in scene 7'. Even in the most abstract plays, there are patterns and while in the first draft you may have sketched it all out, in the second draft you have to start marking it out more properly.

I am currently at the second draft stage with two plays. One of them is an epic, massive piece with lots of characters and themes to coral; the second is a small, chamber piece about the end of the world. But it doesn't matter what the play is, the second draft is where I correct the mistakes I made in the first, clarify what I didn't say quite clearly enough, and cut the inappropriate joke that only I find funny. The second draft is the necessary draft.

I won't lie. I don't really like the second draft phase of writing a play. But it is also the moment when you see what you have and a thought (hopefully) occurs: Yes, I can see this working. Eventually.

Everything (on iPlayer)

I was so busy writing about the end of the world last week that I forgot to post that my play Everything would be repeated on Monday 5th November on BBC Radio 4. It was and now it's on iPlayer. Click here to listen to it. You have a week.

'What's next?'

Returned at midnight on Sunday from a great weekend in Belfast. I'd never been to the city before and it was great to have the weather on our side and see it at it's best. Titus now takes a break for a month before heading to Norway which is exciting.

This is a picture of Galileo I took. He looks quite glum doesn't he? He's thinking about the universe.

One of the questions you get asked a lot as a playwright is 'what's next?' Over the years I've worked out  ways of avoiding this question. 'Lots of things', I say. Or 'I'm thinking about becoming a chef'.

It's not that I don't have lots of things I'm doing next, it's just that I like to keep them to myself. I also like to keep them from myself. If I think too much about a project before I can sit and write it, I tend to over think it or get bored of it.


For me, the only way I can hope to surprise the audience is to surprise myself.

The contradiction comes in the fact that I have to sell my ideas, sometimes years in advance. My technique is now to write the outline/plan or whatever I have to and then try to forget about it until the planned writing time. (I once completely forgot about one idea and had to be reminded by the producer what it was about. True story).

This week has mostly been about planning what I'm writing next year. And so I could tell you what I'm doing but then it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?

Titus in Belfast

Titus is off to the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's this weekend. As a special treat, I get to go too. Very much looking forward to taking in some of the sights as well as other theatre shows. If you want to come and see us, there's more info here.

The Other One - Available to Download

YES! For the first time ever, it is now possible to download one of my radio plays. Hurrah! It's my recent play The Other One that I wrote for BBC Radio 4 as a 15 Minute Drama. There are five episodes. Eat 'em up here.

notes on the End of the World

I'm working on a show about the apocalypse with the Red Note Ensemble. It will be a site-specific, music-theatre piece performed on the last day of the Mayan calendar (21/12/2012) at Summerhall in Edinburgh. For this, I'm doing a bit of audience interaction. Check out the blog...

National Theatre of Scotland 2013

It's official. The new season, or seasons, of the National Theatre of Scotland in 2013 includes Dragon by Vox Motus and myself. I'm very excited to be part of such a great programme.

And now I should stop reading press releases and get back to writing...

New website

Hurrah! My brilliant pal Iain Craig has re-designed and updated my website. It has all my info plus extracts from my radio and pics from my plays. I'm very pleased with it. Hope you enjoy. Click here to see it.

Interview - writing for radio.

This is an interview I did recently for the nice people at the Strictly Writing Blog about writing for radio.

Titus in Austria

Before he arrives in Scotland, Titus is making a brief detour to Austria at the Szene Bunte Wahne. If you happen to be around then go and say yo.

What's new?

I'm currently in the middle of writing Dragon. This is the next play from those theatre wizards at Vox Motus. I can't tell you too much about it at the moment (it's top secret) but needless to say there will be flying, fire and other things that make your eyes go pop. The show will open in October 2013.

As well as this I'm about to embark on a new project with Red Note Ensemble entitled End of The World (for one night only). Performed on the last day of the Mayan Calendar (21st December 2012), it will have music by Gareth Williams, John Harris, Colin Broom, Hanna Tuulikki and Ludwig van Beethoven and words by me. I hope it will be unmissable...

Titus in Scotland

(Joseph Arkley as Titus).

Yes it's not long now until Titus returns to Scotland.

We will be performing at the Macrobert in Stirling on Friday 5th October at 13:00 and 19:00. The performances are part of THAT Festival. There's plenty of other great shows to see, so if you fancy it please come along for the whole weekend.

We'll be happy to see you.

Here are what the critics said about Titus when we were at the Imaginate Festival in May 2012

'... a compelling piece of theatre; a portrait if small-town England that stings with telling detail, and nonetheless contains a dazzling streak of magic realism - ★★★★' SCOTSMAN

'It's a beautifully structured, evocatively phrased monologue that is buoyantly, engagingly inhabited by Joseph Arkley - ★★★★' HERALD

'Theatre at its best - ★★★★★' edinburghguide.com

Welcome

Hello.

I'm a playwright. I live in Glasgow.

This is my new blog.

Here I'll be updating what I'm up to and writing about general playwriting things.

For more info check out my website www.oliveremanuel.com

I hope you enjoy.

Welcome.