“At the start of my time in Sixth Form, I never would’ve pictured myself directing a play I’d written.”
Charlotte Newing
My name is Charlotte Newing and I am a Year 13 student studying English, History and Drama, and was honoured to have received a Playwriting Scholarship as a Sixth Form student, a programme that had never been offered before at Gordon’s. Bringing one of my scripts, Where the Wind Blows, to life has been a journey that simply cannot be described in words, which is a very impactful thing to experience as a writer.
From the outset, Mr Olden, my scholarship lead, encouraged me to define what I hoped to achieve through this programme, especially as no one had ever done writing as a scholar. True to his supportive and ambitious nature, he suggested that we produce one of my scripts. I distinctly remember thinking that he was kidding!
Fast forward a year, and we were holding auditions. True to Gordon’s creative arts community tradition, a talented group of senior students eagerly stepped forward.
Rehearsals were chaos at first. The cast were polite enough not to say they were confused, but you could tell we were all figuring it out as we went. Slowly, and I mean slowly, things started to click – scenes made more sense as they found themselves off the pages of my once protected google doc, characters found their rhythm, and after about thirty six drafts (not an exaggeration), it actually started to look like a play.
Where the Wind Blows is about the lines between love, fear and choice – basically, all the things people don’t like talking about, but feel anyway. It’s set in a family kitchen, originally inspired by an article I read about government bunkers, which somehow ended up making sense.
This has been the first show I’ve worked on where I’m not acting, which has been great to see the other side of a production. Watching other people interpret your words is less terrifying once you realise they often get it more right than you do.
If you come see it, I hope you enjoy it. Or at least, I hope it makes you think a bit.
Where the Wind Blows opens at the Wynter Bee Theatre on Wednesday, 10 December. Tickets: www.gordons.school/boxoffice