This information is provided primarily for those employed in the national and international theatrical industry, taking in producers, directors, literary managers etc.
My writing belongs firmly in the postmodernist school, carrying overtones and influences of Beckett and Pinter, but with a clear and original 'voice'.
All plays are copyright to the author. Licenses for public performance will be offered in the future, following appointment of agent publisher. Publication is desired in book form, following first public, and preferably Metropolitan performance. A traditional publisher working in this field will be utilised. Publication is desired in the form of actors rehearsal scripts, for the amateur dramatics and educational fields. This publisher and agent will act as my collection agent(s) in the areas of issue of performance rights and collection of royalties.
Offers of first public performance are sought from suitable producers. Offer of a metropolitan first performance would be most welcome.
Offer of professional representation by a London based agent is invited.
I can be contacted on n.p.l(at)btinternet.com [where (at) is replaced by the normal keyboard digit].
Date - First Public Performance: 'Fragments' first read by professional actors utilising full costume and props, before an invited audience on the 20th & 21st October 2001 at the (fringe) Theatro Technis Theatre 26 Crowdale Road, Camden Town, London NW1, by the SplitMoon Theatre Company London.
Cast:
'Salkeld': Peter Faulkner, 'Bloch': Dominic Letts
Producer: Caroline Staunton
Director: Carl Peter Sturm
Music arranged by: Reynaldo Young
The reading of this piece was extended from one to two 'performances' over two days, due to the enthusiasm of the producer for this writing. The director commended the piece to the audience before each performance. The actors were enthusiastic, not just concerning the story line, but due to the writing style, which lends itself easily to committal to the memory. On the second day, the actors swapped roles, and did large 'chunks' of the dialogue from memory. Given this was a reading, and the actors had had sight of the script only one hour before the first run, this was interesting for the author to witness.
Future Publication
A leading London publisher has held the script for Fragments since 1997, pending notification of first professional performance. Following a change in the holder of the post of Drama Editor, the author sought and received a letter of confirmation in December 2004 reconfirming the continuing holding of the script. The invitation to notify professional performance was renewed.
Date - First Professional Performance (to be advised)
Date - First Publication (in book form): (to be advised)
Date - First Publication (in actors rehearsal script form): (to be advised)
Date - First Professional Representation: (to be advised)
SCRIPTS: AVAILABLE TITLES
(Available as bound A4 documents, free of charge to professionals within the industry, for evaluation purposes. The scripts will be posted out with copy letters of accreditation, sourced from within the industry, and academia. Some are available with reader's reports. They are also available on floppy disc to close contacts only. Scripts sent to would-be producers via advertisements in Writernet magazine will be sent by email if requested, but only to bona fidi companies. This excludes companies who may well be thus, but for whom I don't have the time to verify this to my personal satisfaction. It is recommended by Writernet and it being sheer common sense that the sending of scripts to persons unknown to me, is a move of doubtful integrity. For those reasons too, script extracts in none encrypted form are not available on this site).
FRAGMENTS:
20mins running time. 1 Act. Characters: two elderly men.Two German men with an ambiguous past meet decades after the war, to put to rest the suggestion of a horrible and grotesque ghost from their joint past. Discussing in an oblique manner the death camps, the nature of the Nazi State, the human condition, personal responsibility, and the true nature of guilt, even when engendered by enforced collusion, far more is offered by this play than it's economical running time would suggest.
Written in an elliptical style, this play has been described in writing by a leading publisher as "menacing and Pinteresque". It has been met with written praise from actors and in senior academic quarters.
Originally planned for performance by the Drama Dept. of Exeter University headed by then Professor of Drama in 1997, 'Fragments' would have been performed as part of the forthcoming Exeter Festival. His freelance drama group collapsed, but before doing so, they wrote a short but incisive report on the piece. In this report, they expressed their desire to perform it as part of the, then, forthcoming festival.
AWAITING SILENCE:
1 hour. 1 Act. Characters: Male 40's, Male 30's, Male 50's/60's, young boy, adult male dwarf.A biting, yet amusing and powerful pastiche of "Waiting for Godot", with a strong philosophical slant. General influences of Pinter's 'The Dumb Waiter' & 'Landscape'. (Pinter was of course, friends with, and influenced by, Beckett, so no artist should be ashamed of having and referring to their own influences).
Two working male colleagues wait in a basement room, whilst electronically eavesdropping on the large country house above. Without realising it, they not only await the return of the occupants, but the nemesis of their own destiny.
A BIRD ON THE FLOOR:
2.5 - 2.75hrs. Thirteen 'scenes' with interval. Characters: Male 45yrs, Female 38yrs, a boy (approx. 10yrs), [an adult male dwarf- only if the Awaiting Silence play is used], female child (approx. 8yrs).A work that an industry insider has described as "experimental", and the then Professor of Drama at Exeter University as "an achievement", "A BIRD ON THE FLOOR" travels back and forth in time, with the two principles playing multiple roles in multiple settings. Against the general theme of the collapse of their relationship, we examine a specific theme on torture, and the dark side of the human condition.
Highly entertaining, amusing, menacing; yet with a strong philosophical approach, it presents a serious examination of psychological torture, and questions the reality of personal destiny and existence.
The play needs a thinking audience, which is prepared to engage. Some passages have been described as 'startling in the images they portray'.
(In some performances, scene thirteen utilises the "AWAITING SILENCE" play previously described).
This play comes with a letter of accreditation from the then Professor of Drama, Exeter University, and two readers reports for different sections of the piece. This play is constructed in a modular fashion, with the 'Awaiting Silence' section able to be removed without affecting the remaining writing. This reduces the running time of the piece by one hour.
TRENCHES-SHOOTING THE CLOCK-THE RELEVANCE OF A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE ON TIME: One Act. Two hander. Stream of consciousness. Running time: under one hour. Characters: Two male. One over 50yrs One in his thirties. A minimal but striking set.
A psychiatrist and his patient play a dangerous game with personal suffering, analysis, the nature of the influence of time upon damaged and/or 'normal' personal perception. This short piece was originally written as an internal test piece, then incorporated in A BIRD ON THE FLOOR where it still remains. It is now available as a stand alone script. PRAVUS:
A praised piece which is firmly postmodernist in construction. With a text based around Freudian psychiatric sexual theory, (particularly the Oedipus Complex), it follows the deteriorating relationship (?) between a woman (mother?), man (father?), a young boy (son?), in a tense and highly stylised manner. Technical sections.
What is the relationship between these three, if any? What has gone wrong for them, if anything? Once completed, their story seems to restart, thus being set to run again and again, and on through time; or does it end, at "The End"?
The story is told through action, with only a few brief lines of dialogue. The protagonists wear clothing of different historic periods, with the woman being dressed ambiguously, thus defying any attempt at time-frame identification. The backdrop against which they act out their tragedy is deliberately neutral, to enhance the multi-layered nature of the text which can be read on many different levels.
This play comes with a highly enthusiastic reader's report, written by a person who was prepared to engage with the writing. The author was prepared to incorporate a suggestion she made to improve the closing seconds of the piece.
THE IMMORTAL STORY
: Nine Scenes. Characters: Male aged 70 Male aged 30's/40's Woman aged late 40's/50 Males 3of aged 30's/40's Chinese Servants: none over 40 Chinese Butler: flexible Coachman: flexible Male aged 30/35An adaptation for the stage of the short story by Isak Dineson (Baroness Karen Blixen)
Set in the Canton of the 1860's, the story examines the tragedy and impotence of old age. Dealing with the impossibility of making a fiction come true, and the personal dangers of challenging fate, by seeking one's own omnipotence, it illustrates the great capacity of the human spirit for self-delusion. Will the story, or the illusion triumph?
Filmed by Orson Welles for French t.v. in 1968, an unexpected level of success led to a cinema release. The nature of the material lends itself both to film* and stage spectacularly well. This is a very atmospheric and meditative piece. (Please refer to Connoisseur Video CR193 VHS)
When in actor's rehearsal script edition, this piece may come with a highly incisive character and story analysis extracted from a book on the films of Orson Welles. Permission to reproduce this extract will be required from the publishers of this book. The quality and depth of this piece will be a great deal of help in explaining quickly to actors and directors, the motivations of the characters in the story. The thorough understanding of these is absolutely essential to the successful staging of this piece.
THE IMMORTAL STORY
- (Film Script) Based closely on my original script for the stage, this short film script is set out to industry standards. It has not been expanded too much over and above the stage play, in order to keep costs within the envisaged television film budget. However, a small number of additional scenes can be added to the script.
RETURN TO GLENNASCAUL
: Six Scenes. Characters: Male approx. 45 Female approx. 55 female approx. 25 Male approx. 50 Female approx. 65 Female approx. 75 Male Narrator aged approx.36An adaptation for the stage of the short 1951 film of the same title. A Hilton Edwards/Michael Mac Liammoir/Dublin Gate Theatre Production. Original screenplay and direction by Hilton Edwards, from an original outline by Hilton Edwards.
An original and stylish ghost story, 'from that haunted land of the tall story - Ireland'.
Originally featuring Orson Welles on screen, acting as narrator in voice-over, and some say, behind the camera part-time (this is clear in some of the 'shots'), the film is shown regularly on British t.v. during the Christmas season, so it should have a high audience awareness.
The adaptation retains all original film action and dialogue, retaining it's fifties timeframe and atmosphere.
The script is purely the film dialogue and action. It awaits theatrical director input. I would wish to work with a director on bringing the essential vehicle movements to the stage.
(Position regarding H.W. screenplay copyright to be advised. It may well be in the public domain by now).
MINATURE:
One Act. 30mins. running time. Characters: A Man and Woman in their late forties. A man in his thirties. Both character groupings occupy different timeframes in origin, but are capable of interrelating. The set is a Freudian labyrinth.The younger Man observes the older couple, between which there is no contact, from above, speculating on their characters and motives. What is the connection between the three, if any? What does the younger Man have against the Woman? Is she even aware of his presence? The dialogue and its revelations are as labyrinthine as the set.
A very atmospheric piece.
A second version of the above, 'Monalogue for Two' exists. This utilises two women, one performing a monalogue with the second reacting to it. Much of the on stage business, direction, and some of the dialogue of the original version, rendered unnecessary in this version, are removed.
This piece may well be suitable for radio, if it isn't rammed into a 'slot' of predetermined length.
THOUGHTS AT THE END OF THE WORLD:
(Length: Three A4) A short story dealing with an apocalyptic vision. Spanning the time between the first and last man on Earth, and concentrating on the latter, we see 'our man' meeting twin parallel destinies shared by no other man who has ever lived.This piece is entertaining and should be worth anyone's five or ten minute's worth of attention. Given that it sums up the human condition, the intervention of the supernatural, and the inevitable destiny of Mankind in one and a half A4 pages, it can be described as 'not bad going', if the author may be allowed to say so…!
This site is linked to '
Playwrights on the Web', an international database of playwrights and their web-sites offering production and publishing opportunities. www.stageplays.com/writers.htm
The author is a member of the Historic Volkswagen Club (founded 1974), Nigel Wallace, Membership Secretary, 5, Gresley Close,Sutton Coldfield,West Midlands, B75 5HT Tel: 0121 308 3693
email:nigel.wallace@virgin.net
I regularly write articles for the nationally circulated club magazine, which is out-sourced printed and bound to a professional standard. Colour section.
(Details on this site are updated as regularly as necessary)
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