Play Excerpt: The Change
Written by Courtenay Schembri Gray
‘The magnolias had sat once, each in a pink dress, looking, of course, at the ceiling.’
—Anne Sexton, The Wedding Night
As some of you may know, I had my first play staged last year. I began writing plays at the very beginning of 2021, but because it was the second lockdown, there weren’t many opportunities; everything was backlogged. I continued to write more plays, but life circumstances meant I didn’t write for a long time. When I did write again I mainly focused on poetry. This was until the tail end of 2023 when I became housebound due to health issues (which I’m still dealing with).
I saw a particular opportunity pop up in which budding playwrights were given a theme to write a short play on. The theme of the time was colour. What came out of it was a ten-minute play about a mother and daughter in the North of England. In the end, I wasn’t chosen for the original opportunity. But a month later, I was having a browse of X to see if I could find any calls for scripts. I stumbled across a call for short scripts to be performed in the Manchester area, so I bit the bullet and sent off my inquiry. It wasn’t long before they asked for my script.
Weeks went by with no word; making me believe that nothing had come of it. It wasn’t until exactly a month to the day I had sent the script off did I receive word that my script had been chosen as one of the plays for the night of shorts. It’s safe to say that I was incredibly excited about it.
After months and months of set building, script readings, and venue acquiring, we ran the show (The Short List) for two nights (sold-out) at Salford Arts Theatre. Due to my health issues, I unfortunately couldn’t be there, but a professional recording was made on the first night. It was a roaring success for all of us.
During my stint of doing Performing Arts in high school, I would have never imagined I’d write for the stage, but it really is a natural consequence. I have always found the theatre to be a magical place—a place of great discovery. And when I began writing plays at the beginning of 2021, I found a new way of telling stories. Three years on, I got the best debut I could have hoped for.
Now, I am working on another play, and the previous play in question has been submitted to a different opportunity (adjacent to Edinburgh Fringe). I will continue to find new audiences for my dramatic work; new and old, poetic or natural.
The Change
Written by Courtenay Schembri Gray
dir. Amanda Fleming / Jonathon Carley
Starring Rebecca-Clare Evans as FREIDA and Nikola Bartosova as BILLIE