Shakespeare quotationWho would have thought that it could be so entertaining? I mean I was looking forward to it – a little anxiety, yes, but I wasn’t expecting instant connectivity, belly-laughs and having fun from performing.

I signed up to Ripping Scripts, an evening class in scriptwriting at Edinburgh University a few weeks ago. I’d been inspired by Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye being performed. Something about the writing coming more alive off the page, the emotion flowing and visible, the words taking on breath and cadence and a power, struck a chord and I knew that I had to explore writing for performance.

This was going to mean moving out of my comfort zone and there was a bit of me quite resistant. I explored the fear a little bit last week when I blogged Lions and Tigers and Bears. Oh, My. I was afraid that joining an established group would be hard, but not only were there other new folk starting, the existing group members were great fun, eager to say hello and completely relaxed around the newbies.

Our teacher has a sense of humour that is somewhat more dry than arid and scalpel-level incisive. We did a fast dialogue exercise with partners which we had to then perform: great stuff! There wasn’t time to be self-conscious, precious or fazed; you just had to do it.

So for next week a script has to be produced which will be performed by others in class. No pressure then.

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