Things all began in 2009 when I entered a random competition in one of the many Street Press magazines. It was kinda cryptic and just said something like "Send in your play to be marked/assessed by Industry professionals".
At the time, apart from decent sales in a call centre and healthy calf muscles, I really had nothing else going on.
So why not, I thought...I'll enter this damn thing!
But there was a problem. I didn't have any plays. I didn't even like Theatre.
Y'see. I went through high-school thinking Theatre was always about these over-the-top, unrealistic and frankly irrelevant stories involving Masks and words like 'Commedia Del Arte'.
Infact my favourite playwright was Barton Fink, a character from a Coen Brothers film.
But I wanted to be a writer and if this meant people would perform/read my work. Who gives a shit what medium.
So in something like 8 hours, I churned out some horrible mental-illness driven play...which I'm positive would have offended people with mental illnesses if they weren't so crazy.
But luckily someone saw potential.
As it turned out, this competition was run by the amazing Australian Theatre for Young People. The man in charge of the comp was (and still is) Lachlan Phillpott. The most important person in my short play-writing career.
(I hope those are snakes)
They invited me to join Fresh Ink. A writing ensemble for young writers which I recommend to all.
Essentially Fresh Ink is a year-long program where they pair you up with an established mentor. It's great because you can share writing, talk about techniques and sometimes...they give you a make-over!
CONTINUED IN PT.2
yours,
Jasper
