Douglas Maxwell: Playwrighting Masterclass
Top Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell’s work has been produced in almost every theatre in Scotland, and across the world: Our Bad Magnet, a play set in Girvan, ran for over a decade in South Korea and is currently being staged in Tokyo in a Japanese translation.
His recent work includes the musical Orphans, Man’s Best Friend, and the BAFTA-nominated Fatbaws, with Peter Mullan.
During this interactive session, Douglas gave seven lucky participants through a thought-provoking workshop about getting into the minds of an audience, explaining why writing a play was so different from any other form of creative writing.
Using old photographs, he encouraged those taking part to say what was going on in each picture, what state of mind the characters were in, and then asked his ‘students’ to write a scene in a play, getting from ‘what keeps you awake at night’ to ‘what gets you up in the morning’ as a framework to the scene.
It was a very interactive workshop, and everyone took something away from it, whether they were a rookie playwright, or had written scripts before.
Here’s a short clip.