AN NDFA INSIGHT ...
Writing plays for amateur theatre - from page to stage
Being a published playwright, director, producer and adjudicator, Bev Clark has seen all the ups and downs of taking a new piece of work through the process.
In a very popular Studio Spotlight session at the July 2025 National Drama Festival she shared her experiences and discussed the obstacles and pitfalls – as well as the ‘joys’ – of being in control of your own work and getting paid for it.
We explored what happens once you have written a play, how to put it on and whether you can publish it, touching on the subject of initial funding, copyright, earning royalties and the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts of new writing.
We invited Bev to summarise her thoughts here in this ‘NDFA Insight’. This is the result, pertinent to anyone interested in writing for amateur theatre, and for festivals in particular.
I was delighted to have been asked to speak at the NDFA’s festival at the beginning of August this year, where I was able to talk about my own personal experiences of being a published playwright. I now have seventeen plays published with Stagescripts.com and it’s fair to say that around half of my published plays are produced regularly by groups around UK and abroad.
10 Top Tips
My advice to new writers hoping to write a play? Here are my 10 top tips.
- See lots of plays, especially professional ones.
- Read lots of plays so you can understand formatting
- Attend courses. There are lots. Make sure the tutor is experienced.
- Don’t just think of plot and characters – how will this play be produced?
- Write every day, even if it’s 100 words of a plot or character description – keep the flow.
- Research your idea – will it work on stage? Are you in fact imagining a screen play or TV script?
- Start with a one act play – a full length play is hard work
- Don’t over-write, we all do – learn to edit, edit, edit.
- Don’t think you must get it right from the get-go. Keep experimenting – get friends to read it out loud so you can hear it.
- Present it well, don’t put in lots of stage directions. Remember a director has their job and actors have theirs – plays are a collaborative process. If you are writing and directing it don’t act in it as well – get a team together.
My personal journey
I think it’s true that we all have stories inside us. I have been writing since childhood but my love of theatre was expressed mainly in performance and directing with a few attempts at adapting stories for the stage and writing for young people.
During the twentieth century writing for stage and screen had largely been for well off, well-educated men (and a few women) By the turn of this century playwriting by ordinary young men and many more women was becoming the norm. In 2006 I went back to university to embark on a part -time ‘writing for the stage’ course, In that time I completed two one-act dramas.
The problem was, what to do with them next? A play isn’t a production until it’s performed.
In 2008 I formed a company and my first project was a very large community production for Capital of Culture which was funded by The Big Lottery and Wirral Educational services.
Getting Drama Festival experience with an original play
After the success of the community production I decided to try and produce my first original play (or ‘self-penned play’ as they’re sometimes called) and present it at a local drama festival. That was the start of my journey and for many writers today that is the easiest way of getting their work ‘out there’ – produce it yourself or find a local group to take it on.
Remembrance Day won that festival with a clutch of awards and then won the All England Theatre Festival (AETF) Quarter Final and went on to the Semi Final where it was pipped at the post. It was also chosen to be performed at NDFA’s National Drama Festival that year.
The experience taught me a lot about the festival circuit, producing and writing.
In 2011, I entered another play Bentley: Road to Justice and again we made an award-winning journey to the AETF Semi Final. After that I didn’t enter festivals for a while, becoming an adjudicator myself, so it wasn’t until 2016 we entered RIP Mr. Shakespeare, co-written with Keith Hill. With this we did make it through to AETF final and to National Drama Festival.
Obviously, I had still been writing and producing work outside the festival circuit and touring locally. Some plays went straight to other companies for them to produce and it wasn’t until 2019 I started entering festivals again and winning more awards.
Funding is something I paid a lot of attention to and in those days funding and sponsorship was easier to find. I never produced a play without the support of funders, foundations and charitable organisations. I always looked for partnerships which helped me raise my profile and market the production. Obviously, I had still been writing and producing work outside the festival circuit and touring locally.
The Publishing minefield
Publishing was a bit of a minefield and I tried many different avenues. Remembrance Day had first been published by NODA and had some success during the remembrance commemorations of 2014-2018. I had won an international competition in 2015 with my play for young people The Black Eyes which was subsequently published.
I thought I would try publishing on Amazon via Kindle as by 2016 I had at least ten plays, but it was a lot of work and although I did sell scripts there was no way I could monitor who was performing them and therefore losing out on royalties.
In 2017 I approached Stagescripts who were happy to take my catalogue based on the fact we had won awards and had good reviews from productions that had taken place. Since then we have been adding to them as up to 2024 we were still receiving festival awards.
It’s not just about chasing the silverware
If I was to look at all the plays Stagescripts now hold, Baggage – a short two hander is by far the ‘best seller’. Why? It’s easy to produce – simple set and two older females. It deals with some challenging issues – homelessness, suicide, death and the menopause but actually it has comedy moments too and the characters are engaging.
Ladies tell me they love playing the characters especially that of ‘Annie’ so it has the ingredients of a festival play – its compact. It has done well in preliminary rounds but even I know it’s not a national winner.
I think you must always be honest with yourself and know the ‘market’ your play will fit into and what you can hope to achieve from it.
Nevertheless, when we toured this play we raised nearly a thousand pounds for local homeless charities. So writing should never be about just chasing the silverware. The best thing, as well as 5 star reviews, is people coming up to you and saying I really enjoyed your play, I really loved performing in your play. That’s still the buzz.
I don’t direct or produce anymore, although I’m still writing, not just plays but prose and poetry too. If you are a writer, that’s what you have to do -published or not. It’s a pleasure that gives a sense of achievement. I can’t promise you will make a fortune – you probably won’t. Fame may just be the night you stand on a local stage receiving a trophy or getting your play in print but if you have a play inside you, don’t be afraid to give it a go and enjoy the process.
A few useful Links from Bev’s NDFA Insight
Stagescripts
All England Theatre Festival
Bev’s 2025 Studio Spotlight