Write Out Loud

Susan Dugdale

10-2:30pm

6-9pm 13.5 hours

A workshop in 4 parts to develop and refine your own story, monologue or comedic piece.

The goal is to create a ‘safe place’ to allow exploration of story and performance. It is not about writing or performing a ‘perfect piece’ but more about equipping ourselves, and each other, with the courage and skills to begin.

Grant yourself and your fellow workshoppers permission to sidestep the tediously common pitfalls: procrastination, self-doubt and damning judgment.

The first two courses will be exploring tools and ideas to create new work.
The third will be focussing on a chosen piece.
The fourth is public sharing of your creation.

We will write, perform, critique and learn together.

Susan Dugdale was captured by the power of words young and has been in their thrall ever since. As a kid she read voraciously and wrote plays, performing all the parts. A variety of silly voices and hats distinguished the characters from one another. There was also frantic rushing about, and numerous necessary asides to establish setting and plot development.

As an adult she taught English and drama in Hawkes Bay and Wellington high schools for many years and directed numerous productions.

Although she attempted to keep her own work going, the reality was that it became a familiar battle ground: a love-hate relationship between protagonists each vying for ascendency. There was schoolwork, housework, parenting, and wife-ing with the odd snatched bit of time for writing and performing thrown in. Scraps rather than chunks.

Fast forward. She no longer teaches. She runs a website: write-out-loud.com, whose principal purpose is providing information about public speaking and writing speeches. And she’s also moved to Mangawhai.

Last year she directed a community production of Dylan Thomas’s classic play Under Milkwood. It had sell-out shows, received standing ovations and enabled the founding of The Mangawhai Players – an incorporated society dedicated to performing arts.

Now she’s making time for herself to write.