Brief 9 – Due by 10 Feb at 10:00am UK time
Today write about a fictional meeting between two un-fictional people.

But let’s make this a bit more fun – and make it a meeting that couldn’t possibly have ever taken place.

What would Mary Wollstonecraft have to say to Beyoncé over a glass of lemonade?
What would Jesus and Ivanka Trump talk about whilst eating fish and drinking wine?
How would Kierkegaard react to bumping into Ghandi in the street?
What if Beethoven would have managed to get those lessons from Mozart he wanted?

This is fun! I can go on all day… but I won’t. I have things to do.

This calls for a duologue but I hate unsolicited calls (hurrah for the end of PPE) – so stick in a few more characters in there.

For 3.14 bonus points – let them eat pie!

Brief 8 – Due by 9 Feb at 10:00am UK time
Today I’ll give you the opening line – you just have to do the rest!
And here it is:

“My name isn’t Kate, so get off the bed and give me that green thing you’re holding, the leak isn’t going to fix itself.”

Make the play as long or as short as you like!
Use as many or as few actors as you like!
In other words, do what you like!

Bonus points if you end the play with the following line:
“You’re such a muppet, no uniform is meant to have blobs on it, now sing me a love song.”

Brief 7 – Due by 8 Feb at 10:00am UK time
Aristotle?! What does he know?

What’s with all that relatability and catharsis malarkey?
And this illusion that theatre is meant to represent some present state? All it does is make the audience emote and forget – like boring dinner.

Naa… Not on my Bertoltian watch!

Time to make a difference in the world and make our audience think. After all, if they feel – they stop thinking, and then they forget – so what’s the point of that?

I think it’s time for some Brechtian epic theatre!

No more ‘here’ and ‘now’, only ‘then’ and ‘there’ (thankfully, we’re fully versed in past tense writing). Tell a story and comment on it as you report it.

Don’t attempt to create identification with your characters, make them do strange things that break the illusion all the time (that’s what ‘verfremdungseffekt’ means – not alienation as is often mistranslated).

As for the structure of the play, go wild – be loose, forget everything you think you know about how to structure a story with climaxes (climaxi?) catharsiseseses (catharsi?) suspenseseses (suspensi?) it can even be episodic (shout out to all my DDD playas).

Oh… and don’t use the word ‘alienation’… it hurts my ears… eyes… heart! No! Brain! It hurts my brain! Screw my heart! I mean… don’t screw my heart… That’s… weird… ooh, but then it verfremdungseffekts! So maybe you should? Oh dear…

Brief 6 – Due by 7 Feb at 10:00am UK time
Writers of 28PL, I heard your words as I was going forth to salute the god Cadmus with my prayers…

It is time to write a Greek tragedy!

A few guidelines… (not rules! Rules will come at a later brief!)

• You only get 3 actors and a bunch of chorus members – however, remember you have masks, so 3 actors can play more than 3 characters if you write wisely.
• The chorus sings and dances. Make sure you don’t forget the songs and the dances – this is what this brief is really about. The other characters should mostly speak in some iambic meter – writers’ choice as to which one.
• You have the three unities – unity of time, space and action – i.e all set in one space, over no more than 24 hours and with only one major plot line.
• And you can go all Aristotelian about what makes a tragic character – you know… a relatable person of high nobility suffering from hamartia (a tragic flaw, such as hubris) which leads to peripeteia (the reversal of fortune and a downfall), which creates catharsis (pity and fear) in the audience after they get punished far more severely than they probably deserve.
• And of course, once you set everything up and have no more way of getting out of the mess you find yourself in – you can always call in the good ol’ Deus ex Machina to save the day!

Of course, the trick is to make it a modern play, so one must ask, what does nobility mean in 2021? What does modern punishment mean? What kind of masks shall one wear today? Why is there a chorus on stage? And why is it dancing and singing all of a sudden?

Some Greek-speaking writers in da house this year, so do write in yo’ mo’ tongue!

Brief 5- Due by 6 Feb at 10:00am UK time
Today we’re going to look at petrified trees.

Petrification is a sort of fossilisation process that happens to dead plants underground when there is no oxygen to allow for the decomposition of the material, and as a result, instead of disappearing, it completely transforms and becomes a mineral… ending up being a stone that is the exact carbon copy (or rather mineral copy) of the tree.

There are some places in the world where you can walk through an entire forest that has been petrified… oooh… spooky!

Therefore, for today, lets find inspiration from this incredible process, the idea that every part of you changes from vegetable to mineral, from a living thing to a stone. Although personally, I just like the image of all these trees shivering with fear.

For the final bonus points of the week – if yesterday we had lots of characters, today maybe focus on just the one – doesn’t need to be a monologue, but perhaps all the other characters revolve around one main character. In fact, this play might work with the whole ‘person lost in the woods’ trope…

Brief 4 – Due by 5 Feb at 10:00am UK time
It’s Groundho… no!

No more groundhogs – but rather elephants… or maybe just the one!

Time to face the covid-shaped elephant in the room. From all forms of writing, playwriting is currently suffering the most, as theatre venues have been forced to be innovative and find new, exciting and interesting ways to offer a theatrical experience to an audience that is socially isolated.

One of the first solutions theatre companies have found was filming plays at home, via means of phones, computers, social media, etc, into the emergence of what is now known as Zoom theatre.

So today’s brief is to write a play that can be produced in isolation.

But it should be a play that makes the most out of the situation, rather than feels restricted by it, a play that is still theatrical (i.e. not a short film, but something that can be performed live, in front of an audience who share the experience… or whatever way you want to define ‘theatrical’ – remember – definitions are your own).

Now… a few important notes… don’t write a play with a ‘stage’ in mind – but rather consider the actual medium in which it is set. Then again, don’t write a play about two people meeting on Skype or going on a date on Zoom – I think we’ve seen enough of those this year and we can try to be a bit more adventurous. OK… what does that leave you with? I… don’t know. I leave you with it!

For bonus points, don’t make this play a monologue. Have several actors interacting with each other. You get 5 bonus points for each character. How do they interact if they’re distant? That’s up to you.

And don’t forget to collect your points and place them nicely in a jar, because points mean prizes! What do points mean?

Brief 3 – Due by 4 Feb at 10:00am UK time
It’s Groundhog Day!!!

Yes, it certainly is. And if yesterday we were stuck in the past, today we’re stuck in the present!

So, whether you want to write a play that loops the sa… hold on… this is eerie…

OK, seeing as we’re stuck on the same day, we may as well get a play out of it, because if you’re groundhogging the day, it means you still haven’t written the play, and besides, you’re not actually repeating the exact same day – because for at least one person it’s very different.

So, for our play today, set up your play from yesterday in exactly the same way – first few lines don’t change, but then your characters choose to behave completely differently throughout. But beware, the play must go into a totally new direction, not just be a different perspective of the same story.

For bonus points don’t simply change the plot but also the style – turn a frown upside down, turn a song into a pause, a farce into melodrama, or whatever…

Brief 2 – Due by 3 Feb at 10:00am UK time

It’s Groundhog Day!!!

Yes, it’s certainly is. And if yesterday we were stuck in the past, today we’re stuck in the present!

So whether you want to write a play that loops the same day, or you want to write a play that loops the same day, or you want to write a play that loops the same day, or you want to be all zen and write about living in the moment, or about lots of presents, or about groundhogs. Or about days. Or just write a monologue about how underrated Andie MacDowell is, and whether she was better in Hudson Hawk, Short Cuts or in her incredible monologue in Sex Lies and Videotapes… spoiler!), or you want to write a play that loops the same day.

But what is the present anyway?
Is it this second? Has it already ended?
Is it this year? Is it far or is it near?
Is it this millennium? uhm… does it fit inside your cranium?

Woah… getting far too metaphysical for our second day, I’ll leave my philosophical rantings to where they belong – in week 4!

OK, let’s get us some bonus points… add a surprising character halfway through the play. Somebody you didn’t expect when you set off writing – the bigger the surprise, the more bonus points you can get.

And here’s to not having 6 more weeks of winter! (is that what they indicate?)

Brief 1- Due by 2 Feb at 10:00am UK time
I don’t know if anybody else noticed, but 2021 didn’t quite start with the whole ”goodbye to 2020″ we were promised (shout out to our special friends on the other side of the pond… and those on this side of the pond… oh, and those by the other ponds. Shout it all out!).

So, for our first brief, let’s take control of the situation.

Write a play that is all about saying goodbye to the past. Focus only on the yesterdays and yesterday and yesterdays. Nothing about the now, nothing about what’s to come – only what was, and perhaps what could have been.

And for our first brief, I always like to start easy – write in the style that you feel most comfortable in, with the amount of characters you prefer, and in a length that is perfectly Goldilocksed (not too long, not too short, but just right for you for today).

Perhaps write a social realism play about something that happened in 2020 (I think there may have been one or two things to write about)?
Or an absurdist play about something that happened to you on this day last year?
Or a musical about a throuple that is moving out of their old house and reminiscing?
How about a comedy of errors set in a hotel with a door that keeps taking you to the same room in the past (hmm… maybe not too original)?
Perhaps some lyrical magic realism about natsukashii?
What about a tragedy about someone who is incapable of letting go of a childhood trauma?
Or a dramatic monologue about an Italian chef parting from his favourite tortellini dish?
So many possibilities, and after all, parting, as we’ve been told, is such sweet sorrow…

Still no ideas whatsoever? Just set it in a pond… with James Bond… in the past… on a plain… with a plane… and a pound… of pound coins…

OK, time for some TLC World-Famous Bonus Points!!!
To get your talented writing hands on nifty bonus points, make sure to make no reference to any present or future, focus the entire play on the past. Maybe even only use past tense – so no ‘verbing’, ‘verbs’ or ‘will verbs’!

Lots of newbies this year – so in case you’re wondering about the importance and significance of bonus points, the answer is yes!

Brief 28 – Due 01/02 at 09:59:59am GMT
Pick a number, and based on the wedding gift it corresponds to, write an autobiographical, origin, silent panto, inspired by the sea and referencing TLC and Bjork. Make sure it’s written all in Iambic Pentameter stream-of-consciousness (I mean, isn’t everybody’s stream-of-consciousness in Iambic Pents?).
Give yourself 10 strict rules for the structure (or use the ones I’ve already given you – don’t say I’m being too mean), but do start the play with “Get your filthy hand off me, JJ, the falafel is burning and after what your ferret did to the doctor, I think you have a lot of explaining to do!” and end it with “If I see your red-tailed donkey in the shopping centre one more time, I’ll send the geese to eat your kids.”
Write about digital clothes on a positive body and set it around Chinese New Year, or any of its themes. Make sure there is no logic in the play, perhaps by creating a fake news/history.
Make sure the play is written for the audience of any of the 6 BBC Radio stations (or maybe all of them), and deal with topics such as cultural appropriation and anything the Guerrilla Girls said in their video, I mean, remember it needs to be a morality play after all, so we need to be clear on good and evil.
For dialogue, you can walk around with a pen and notepad (if anybody still remembers what those are) and write down what other people are saying, preferably idioms, which you can use literally. Oh, yeah… don’t forget to write it all backwards.
And here comes the tricky bit. Don’t finish the play! Instead, put it to one side and re-do the task all over again (with a completely new concept). Only when you finish the second version, pick up the half-completed project and complete it.
Of course I am jesting… this joke never gets old! 🙂
No… we started our journey on a ship at sea, so lets end it with some “Land Ahoy!” Write about the destination… the port, the land, the horizon, the future…
Bonus points to anyone who knows how many bonus points they have and incorporates that in their play.