Gauntlet -  2015 first updates (July -  October)

OCTOBER: On 13 October, the Gauntlet entered a new phase as members identified a theme for the play and so began an exploration of this.  Be afraid! The possibility of darkness and humour is on the horizon…  All welcome to join.

SEPTEMBER: On 15 September, the mysterious Gauntlet people continued in their quest to write a play and get it on its feet within a year!  Small  in number but not ideas, the group continued to explore their inner creatives . 

With a stop-watch to focus the mind the group found unknown texts lurking deep within about 

• their look,
• the weather,
• their surroundings and
• eight words they could never live without! 

Lots of fun and some wonderful material emerging. 

AUGUST: An extremely small select group met in the Brasserie Seppl for the August Writers’ Group…Chris Wilson explains,  “Cecile kicked the evening off by getting us to write a description of our activities from the previous day, but as if they had been performed by a pink elephant – apparently an idea from Summer School that she wanted to share.  It provoked some really interesting descriptions! We then had to re-write the day as viewed by one of the characters who had been part of it. As my only ‘characters’ were ravens, that proved a challenge! More character work led from that, and we finished the evening off with a very jolly round of ‘Consequences’. Great fun!”

Cecile Somers and Chris Wilson ran the session and look forward to starting the selection process of a plot in September.

JUNE/JULY: First sessions: Cecile Somers led the first evening getting participants set to work immediately.  Each  person wrote down a role they had always wanted to play, a line they had always wanted to say, a title they have wanted to use/like, a theme , a topic, a genre, a plot and a dynamic.

The responses were often as diverse as the group itself and gave plenty of food for thought. Three groups then formed and discussions ensued to try to work towards choosing a title, story and first line.  It was not an easy process! Aside from tricky acoustics, very different ideas were suggested before each group settled on a title, brief synopsis and first line and then shared these with the entire group.