How do we write our script?

Two performers, Susie and Nicole, in a rehearsal room playing our drama game, the blindfolded obstacle course.

Another week, another blog post! This week from a different person though. I’m Susie and I thought I’d give you guys some insights in how we got started as a company – which involves our script and rehearsing process as well - so you will get some lovely insights (I hope!).

I have a degree in Drama & Theatre, where I got the chance to try myself out in different aspects of theatre-making. I’ve always enjoyed writing and performing since I was a kid, so I guess it was only natural that I quickly figured that these were my strongest skills. A surprising talent or skill or whatever you like to call it that I discovered at university was comedy. I never really thought of myself as a funny person, but there I was making people laugh on stage on purpose and it worked.

I’ve done a bit more than that, but I don’t think that’s as important for the purpose of this post. When I got the idea for Conversations with a Cripple, I had a very clear vision in mind: originally, it was supposed to be a one-woman-show, but I very quickly realised that wasn’t the way I wanted to do it. I didn’t want it to be just a representation of my personal experiences as a disabled woman. I wanted to show more than that. There have always been things that I noticed in our daily lives where I thought to myself “Hold on a minute, that isn’t right” and that thought didn’t only just occur to me when I experienced something as a visually impaired woman.

Something that has been important to me throughout is to create a show that is engaging, entertaining but also educational at the same time. Educational might sound a bit strong, but I feel it is crucial that the audience leaves the room and feels like they’ve learned something new about a minority group in our society that they didn’t know before. I want them to see that disabled people are just like them. We might have different problems now and then, but we all feel the same way. And how better to approach this than with comedy? If you make people laugh, you connect with them in a positive way. We don’t want to be pitied or victimised. Make people laugh and they will be able to take a lot from it.

Long story short, I wanted to include like-minded people that shared my vision. I’m very happy to say that I managed to find a wonderful bunch of ladies, who I’ve been working with during the last couple of months to make this vision a reality. The process is completely different from what I imagined it to be, but it is an exciting one. Everyone has a different background and therefore brings in different aspects to rehearsals that we can play with.

Now, normally you’d think the script was one of the first things to be done. In our case, we turned things around a bit. Our script is still in progress. During rehearsals, we decide what kind of material we would like to include in our piece, I then take the material home with me and put it into words on paper, which we then later on rehearse, shape as we want and polish until we’re happy with them. I have never done things this way before but must say it’s an interesting new approach to writing which I enjoy. In one way it makes my job as a writer easier as I don’t have the pressure to come up with things myself, on the other hand, it increases the pressure a bit because I feel like I have to give justice to the material we all created together.

We’re currently still in the phase in which we create material, but over the next couple of weeks I will transform all the amazing bits and pieces we already have and put them on paper. We’ve all been so busy and hard-working in the last couple of months to make this piece as good as it can be at this point and we will continue doing so in the new year. We can’t wait to show it to our first audience in only a few months time to get some first feedback to see how we can improve from there.