This week Ali and Debs starting writing short play in which the characters do not have a defined gender. This is because this play is to be submitted for another short play event and that is the remit. We can write about whatever we want so long as we do not specify a gender for any of our characters.
Back in July when, on the spur of the moment, we decided to write something for the 17Percent She Writes showcase, we realised that we got a bit of a buzz out of responding to a remit and working to a deadline. Since then we have signed up to Gina Gough’s excellent blog, Playwrights’ Competition Calendar, and we have really enjoyed the challenge of regularly knocking a little something out and sending it off. It has been a really rewarding experience and has forced us to write about things and in styles that we wouldn’t have otherwise.
And so back to our play with characters of undefined gender: whilst writing this we made a rather interesting discovery. The play that emerged was the one that we intended to write when we started writing our second full length play (still work in progress). We found that while writing about things that are experienced by men and by women, like domestic violence for instance, this is a great way for us as writers to challenge our perceptions of gender and stereotypes of men and women.
As always, we are keeping things under wraps but we will keep you posted if any of our recent submissions are selected 😉
Ali & Debs