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By profession I’m a graphic designer, based in Bristol, England, and currently run my own business. I started pursuing my interest in drama seriously over 10 years ago, joining an amateur group in central Bristol called St Paul’s Players as a budding actor. I’ve remained with the group ever since, undertaking a variety of acting roles.
In 2002 I got the opportunity to direct my first play. Although I felt ready to have a go and had an vague notion of the sort of play I wanted to direct, I didn’t have a pool of appropriate script suggestions to draw upon, and with limited time to choose a play I found it a tough challenge. I wanted an interesting modern play with an edge, suitable for an amateur group of mixed abilities with a large cast. Not only that, it had to be suitable for performance in a church! Now, you try finding an up-to-date play that has all the things I’ve mentioned but doesn’t have some combination of sex, strong language, violence… you get the picture. The only way I could see through this was to write something myself, a sort of tailor-made drama. Scary!
The solution, I decided, was to create a modern story with a science-fiction feel. With all of the above criteria in mind I set about writing, and within 6 months had a workable script for the Players to try. Luckily, they liked it, and we put “The Other Side of the Sky” into production in November of that year. (A short documentary film of the whole process, entitled “The Other Side of the Play” is available from Bristol Film and Video Society.) When the dust settled, I revised and improved the script which was then accepted for publication by New Theatre Publications.
Whilst I am far from being a fully-fledged playwright, I am determined that now I’ve started, there will be more writing to follow, when time and inspiration allow – yes, I know, excuses, excuses. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy “The Other Side of the Sky”.
Paul Williams
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