On Tuesday 20 January 2015: 6.00pm – 8.00pm, the Bruntwood Prize hosted a live online workshop with award-winning playwright and judge Bryony Lavery on the subject ‘GETTING STARTED AND CREATING THEATRICAL CHARACTERS’.

The aim of this workshop is to inspire, provoke, challenge and support playwrights to create new work to submit for the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

As well as helping to kick-start your writing and get you going on preparing your script for the 2015 Prize, this workshop will also explore ideas to inspire you, questions to ask yourself when starting your play, and practical tips on developing your ideas, as well as exploring what makes a theatrical character and how to take your characters, and your audience, on a truly memorable and imaginative journey.

To make the most of this online workshop, please read the two workshop handouts:

Workshop Handout 1 – An extract from Henry V by William Shakespeare and

Workshop Handout 2 – An extract from THE BACCHAE by Euripides.

You can watch the entirety of the live workshop below:

Or a short version here:

Check out our Storify containing social media comments from the event.

BRYONY LAVERY’s plays include HER ACHING HEART (Oval House, Pink Paper Play Of The Year 1992), A WEDDING STORY (Oval House), FROZEN (Birmingham Rep, TMA Best Play Award, the Eileen Anderson Central Television Award, and then produced on Broadway where it was nominated for 4 Tony awards), LAST EASTER (The Door, Birmingham), STOCKHOLM (Plymouth Drum with Frantic Assembly, Wolff-Whiting award for Best Play 2008). Adaptations include UNCLE VANYA and A CHRISTMAS CAROL as an associate artist for The REP.

Her recent work includes BEAUTIFUL BURNOUT (National Theatre of Scotland and Frantic Assembly, Fringe First at Edinburgh), KURSK (Young Vic and Sydney Opera House), CESCARIO (National Theatre), THURSDAY (Adelaide Festival), THE BELIEVERS (Frantic Assembly at Theatre Royal Plymouth and the Tricycle), QUEEN COAL (Sheffield Studio) and an adaptation of TALES OF THE CITY/MORE TALES OF THE CITY by Armistead Maupin for BBC Radio 4.

Forthcoming works include stage adaptations of 101 DALMATIANS (Chichester Festival Theatre), TREASURE ISLAND (National Theatre), BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (York Theatre Royal) and PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (ETT/Brink). Bryony is an honorary doctor of Arts at De Montfort University and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Image: Scott Graham