THE 2021EVENT!

I love the early stages of writing a play; when every idea seems like a good idea, when random lines of dialogue pop into my head, when I’m inundated with images that I don’t know the meaning of, but I just know they’re important. There is so much joy in writing a script that people pick up and read out loud. I love that writing can be shared and that the script of a play is often used as stimulus for more creation, just in different forms!

There is no doubt that writing can be hard and it can take a lot of effort but at the end of the process it’s always worth it. Holding a finished script in your hand – there is no greater feeling. I love having written.

I’ve always loved the way writing allows, and has always allowed me to express myself. There’s something so incredibly liberating that the only barriers are the ones you set for yourself as a writer and, beyond it being read, the validation comes from creating a story. I think expressing yourself is something we don’t value enough as a society. We live and breathe stories and writing is my way of expressing those. I’ve been told before that writing is a solitary act but I really don’t think it is – the sense of collaboration between a writer and an audience, and a community and the text itself and there’s something so joyous and fun about that.

There’s that moment when you’re writing when it’s right and that’s what keeps me coming back – those moments when you understand the stories that you’re telling and you realise why you want to tell them.

I love having the opportunity to create a whole new world – to be able to decide what it looks like and sounds like and what kind of people its characters are. Or whether the characters are people at all. To be able to make it Australian or Martian or the Wild West. To make the world funny or exciting or surprising or scary or silly – whatever I want.

And then, crucially, I love being able to welcome people into that world, to let them immerse themselves, to let them believe in it. Because it is an audience that brings all these made-up worlds to life and that connection between a writer and their audience – the moment when an imagination is fired and engaged – is incredibly special and unique.