I know the ultimate cut off date for hearing that we've been accepted is (off the top of my head) September 20, but does anyone know if we are likely to hear before then, if we are lucky enough to pass the first hurdle?
Should I just forget about my entry until September 21, or can I still leap for the phone/post/email with hope in my heart before then?
Has anyone on here heard from the production people already?
Has anyone on here heard from the production people already?
I wouldn't have thought so, surely they'll wait until the deadline closes before making their final choices? I dunno. Could be talking rubbish. Usually am
Thanks for your replies. I'm kind of assuming that if you've sent them a synposis and sample 20-pages of a play that has already been completed, they will contact you at some point and request to see the rest of it.
If by some miracle, I got chosen, and this was the case then I would be in big trouble because I'm only writing what I'm sending in!
I write in an odd way. It would never occur to me to start something at the beginning and follow it through to the end. I'll come up with a line of dialogue, then write the scene around that. And that scene could be from anywhere in the play!
However you write - good luck in the competition, enjoy writing for its own sake, do it because you have something to say; and please come to my opening night when I win!
Originally posted by Adman 1961: Bearing in mind EVERYONE thinks they can write, I bet your numbers are too low!
Yeah, but how many people actually saw it being advertised? Because I only saw it once, and that was right before my finals.
Plus a lot of people think they can write - but who actually will have sat down and made the effort to do this. It meant sitting down and writing something for weeks - not just turning up one day for an audition.
Adman, I will definitely be at your opening night. You'll be able to spot me because I'll have a t-shirt on saying 'Should have been me!'
And no, I haven't ever read Waiting For Godot - why do you ask?
Good point about the advertising - interestingly, I know that a hell of a lot of AmDram societies got publicity about it and a request to circulate to their members, plus several other 'Writers Rooms' on the net. Possibly they didn't publicise to 'amateur amateurs' because they didn't want to be flooded with absolute rubbish - just our sort or rubbish?!
Waiting For Godot appears to have been written the way you said you write - except the dialogue was NEVER really ordered!
My local theatre are staging my submission sometime next year (yet to be slated) - so I'll get you a t-shirt!
Good idea to stage your work anyway, regardless whether you're shortlisted or not. Plays should be seen in performance, not just read. Adman, let us know when and where your work is on. AmDram is very much under-rated I reckon. I don't mean 'Annie get your Gun' at the church Hall with a cast of most of the village, but rather a group of individuals getting together on a project and entertaining their peers. You can't beat it.
I'm really lucky - I'm a member of The Bishop's Cleeve Players in Cheltenham, and we have an absolutely superb, fully equipped amateur theatre (The Playhuse). The Village Hall crowd can often turn out some good stuff, but mostly they're simply not equipped to stage it, sadly.
Adman, You are very lucky there. I'm down in Portishead and there's virtually nothing like that here, but I suppose Bristol is so close and they have the Old Vic studio and all. I was once a pub manager and always wanted to run a pub theatre, with a decent space for productions that could double for stand-up comedy etc. There are loads in London and only a few in Bristol. I intend to check out the Tobacco Factory theatre in Bristol to see if I can get my stuff on there at some time in the future. It is such a buzz to sit in the back row, totally anonymous and see your words coming to life, and do a bit of people-watching in the audience, hoping they're engaging with your work.
Alex, That's how I started out - although not a huge venue, just a small pub theatre. Broke even financially, and got decent reviews. I heard Newcastle was fast becoming the cultural centre of the North East. There's bound to be a pub theatre somewhere...
This site says that, if you haven't heard by 30th September, you're not in the running. But I've been thinking ...
In order to be able to give that assurance, well before that date the Production Team will need not only to have decided on a shortlist BUT THEN to have met with the candidates, double-checked that they meet all the criteria, talked through all the implications with them, gone through various legals and put them under the various contracts. They have to allow for holiday and work committments (theirs and ours), thinking time, the candidate maybe taking legal advice ... and they have to do all that in enough time so that, if even one of their candidates messes them about or fails the criteria or won't / can't sign the contract(s), they have enough time to go through it all again BEFORE September 30th!
What's the betting some lucky swines find out in August!?
"Shortlisters" might even hear this month (ie July)?
You can bet they've been reading our stuff as it comes in, and there will already be two piles - "absolute no-no's" and "possibles". Would you wait to distribute the X hundred submissions to the playreaders? I wouldn't - it's just not efficient. All I'd want to do is make judgement from the "possibles" pile, uncluttered by the "no-no's".
From what I understand, and I may be wrong all the production team are doing is checking the entries. They are not reading them until after the closing date.
I remember being told to go to the stores and get "A long weight" when I was a kid..... It took me two hours to realize.......
I though I saw a light at the end of the tunnel .. but it was only Jay with a torch, looking for the way out!
Don't recall anything on this site that says they're not screening our stuff as it comes in, Cramps! In the interests of efficiency, I'd probably whittle out the absolute no-hopers fairly early on - as early as I could, in fact.
Don't forget, there's a whole tv programme that has to be made here, not just a play to be staged; I reckon I'd want my 'shortlist' sorted as soon as possible - if only to give as much time as possible to the lucky blighters who utimately have to get their plays written!
Don't see that anywhere, Cramps! If I were running this I'd want to screen out the chaff as soon as possible - if only to give the lucky blighters who actually go through the maximum time to write!
The phrase 'if you haven't heard by 30th September you're not in' doesn't mean that the 'shortlisters' won't know earlier - in fact, I reckon they'd know as soon as the PT could get to them!
Got to go to a meeting now, and may not be back 'til late - in case the Forum goes down at 4pm (can't see why, but who knows), can I say 'Good Luck'to you, Crampy, to all the other scribes, and to Screenstage, Channel 4 and the Ambassador Theatre Group. Whoever wins, this has been an interesting and educational experience for me already!
actually i read somewhere on one of the archived posts the production team said that they wouldnt be reading any of the submission until after the closing date....i believe the post was from someone who was worried that if they were being read as they came in the PT could technically go...woohoo heres our three...and be biased about what theyve read so far etc.....
At the moment we are still taking entries to the competition so none of the submissions have been read or any shortlists made. As we are unable to acknowledge receipt of submissions, you would only have been contacted by the team so far if there is a problem with your entry.
This what you looking for? Posted under 'Night Terrors'
See you at the awards!!
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
