So, after a couple of weeks of plotting behind the scenes and a couple of minor technical glitches from me, I'm thrilled to announce that audition slots for the new mini web series, You know Carol... are now open! Hop over to the You know Carol...audition page to sign up.
After Leigh Chambers and Michael Southgate brought my little vignette 'You know Carol...Ciaran's mum', so beautifully to life for the WRiTEON Zoomologues series, it began niggling at me who else Carol was - Katie's aunt, Matthew's ex-wife, Peggy's daughter? And ultimately, who she was to herself.
She started following me around, having conversations with her friends and family. Arguing with her mum whilst I was trying to take a shower, trying to reconcile her niece and her sister whilst I was on my lunchtime walk, distracting me from my dinner talking to her best friend. I found I had to write them down so I could sleep.
As a creative person, it's actually a really lovely feeling when an idea grabs you and won't let go - even if it does send your sleeping patterns all over the place! Over the next couple of weeks, I put together a further seven little duologues for Carol. The series was basically written. But how to get the piece off the page? I needed a director.
I've worked with Richard McNally on a number of theatre projects. He directed one of my first pieces that was ever staged, Choice Cuts, in the ADC bar for one of WRiTEON's First Stage seasons, as well as my first one-act play Blood Music last year, and we've often been on the same page when it comes to theatre, so I sent him the scripts to see what he thought. To be honest, I was a bit nervous as they had been knocking around in my head for quite a while and I wondered if I was too close to see them objectively. I was relieved when he said he really liked them and we arranged a meeting.
And so it began. Late on a damp Thursday in October, sat in our dressing gowns over Zoom, we started plotting. It was perhaps not the most auspicious of beginnings, but it felt right in many ways. A piece about comfort and belonging with us both very much at home. Budgets and formats and crew and auditions and shall we do this? Really? Yes!
Since Richard and I have mainly worked in theatre before, there was one more little piece of the prologue to put in place before we could take that real first step, we needed a tech advisor. We were thrilled to welcome back Michael Southgate into that role. The production team was complete.
And so here we are. The next first step. We have the writing, we have the director, we have the tech wiz, we have the characters. We just need people to inhabit them now!
