Journal Article

Making New Theatre Together: The First Writers' Group at the Royal Court Theatre and Its Legacy within the Young Writers' Programme

Holden, Nicholas

2017

Overview

[...]to the Young Writers' Programme, whose history, as I have noted above, is in the early stages of academic analysis, the purpose, practice, and impact of the first Writers' Group at the Royal Court can be largely comprehended from the recollections of that time in the autobiographies of the group's members and through many of the publications on the history of the Royal Court.5 It is the purpose of this article, therefore, to revisit what should be regarded as the first attempt to bring a new generation of young playwrights to the Royal Court, through the Writers' Group in 1958, and to place the group's inception, methodology, and legacy within the contemporary context of the Young Writers' Programme.The limited space at the theatre meant that an alternative location at a paint shop on Flood Street was secured as the group's base, and here the participants \"sat on boxes, creaking chairs, anything to hand, in a strict circle surrounded by debris and draughts\" as Devine got the first meeting underway.11 It is a less than glamorous picture and, unsurprisingly, given the working environment, the initial meetings of the first Writers' Group are remembered by those involved as being \"tentative and a little stiff·.Where the group had failed was in their inability to recognize the value of a regular meeting place for young writers \"to make new theatre together\" in a supportive environment, and as a consequence this had prevented any future opportunity for other writers who could have also benefitted from the writers' group structure.41 There is without doubt value in the notion that playwriting groups can provide a much-needed sense of camaraderie in the often solitary life of a writer.[...]the Court and its artistic team, to retain its fundamental identity as a writers' theatre, must also continue to challenge and question the ways in which it works with its writers so as to remain central to the future of new writing.

• Publisher: The University of Alabama Press,University of Alabama Press
• Subject: Animashawun, Ola / Artistic directors / Bartlett, Mike (1980- ) / Daldry, Stephen / Dramatists / Gaskill, William M / Initiatives / Macmillan, Duncan / Playwriting / Prebble, Lucy / Rickson, Ian / Social aspects / Space / Stenham, Polly / Stephens, Simon / Study and teaching / Theater / Works / Writers / Writing instruction / Young adults