(The Narrator approaches the sofa which is now occupied by Steve Marshall, Marie Horner and Carl Brewerton. Marie is seated in between the two boys. She apparently favours Steve as she is turned slightly towards him and away from Carl. As the Narrator speaks, we see the flirt in action).
The flirt. Or, as some girls might put it, “That bitch who’d better stay away from my boyfriend”. Now flirts have a bad reputation but this may be unfair. Is flirting something deliberate or do some girls simply give out the wrong signals by dressing and acting friendly? Most girls would tend to say “That bitch knows exactly what she’s doing, and if she bats her eyelashes at my boyfriend one more time I’ll bat them both with a baseball bat”. Most boys, on the other hand, are sweetly unaware of flirtation, and put all this attention down to their own imagined charms.
Now flirting, if it’s deliberate, doesn’t take much. All a girl needs to do to be a flirt is smile and show a little interest, and a little leg or cleavage. All this arm-touching and eye-contact business is more of a calculated provocation to every other girl in the room. If you could hear the grinding of teeth through gritted smiles it would drive you dental.
This (indicating Marie) is Marie Horner, whose reputation precedes her. This (indicating Steve) is Steve Marshall, whose girlfriend we saw crying in the toilet earlier. And this (indicating Carl) is Carl Brewerton, who is currently single and may well be for life.
(Not impressed). Yeah. Well. That’s one idea. (He is suddenly struck by another idea). Maybe you’d like to come to one of our sessions?
Oh that’s a shame. I’d come and see you play all the time. Still, if she wouldn’t mind, perhaps I could come and listen?
(Marie takes a notepad and pen out of her bag and starts to write down her phone number. Joanna, Eleanor and Tina enter in the background. Eleanor comes over).
(Steve goes over to Joanna and look like he’s going to have a hard time of it. Eleanor turns her back on Marie. Tina comes over).
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I am a fully qualified teacher of Drama, Media and Film Studies with ten years’ work experience in secondary and further education. I graduated from the Central School of Speech and Drama (one of the most respected Drama conservatoires in the world) with a first class Honours degree in Drama and Education and a PGCE. I was a writer-in-residence and workshop leader for a Southend-based youth theatre for ten years, during which time I developed my creative writing skills to include playscripts, poetry and songs. With my deep interest in Film, I have now expanded these skills to include screenplays. I now wish to take a sabbatical from teaching to focus on a proposal for a PhD thesis. This will involve developing new collaborative methodologies for intertextual musical theatre in the context of a resynthesis of art, philosophy and science. My specific areas of interest and expertise are as follows: Academic, Acting, Analysis, Assessment, Auditions, Collaboration, Creative Thinking, Directing, Drama, Education, English, Film, History, Lecturing, Literature, Media, Poetry, Philosophy, Playscripts, Screenplays, Songs, Teaching, Television, Theatre, Tutoring, Workshops, Writing.
My name is Chris Port. I’m a graduate from the Central School of Speech and Drama (DE99 and PGCE00).
I’ve spent the last ten years teaching in UK secondary and further education. After a decade immersed in some intense action research, I’ve now ‘come up for air’. I want to feed back on some of the ‘interesting’ politics I’ve observed and experienced at first hand. There is a lot that is wrong with our education system...
I’m writing a first draft for a musical. It's called Marty Gull (Marty[r] Gull[ible]). It's a surreal, satirical, tragicomic piece of musical political theatre: a cautionary tale of school politics, backstabbing egos and the state of the nation.
I’ve written the first draft libretto using a medley of melodies in my head from well-known musicals.
Where possible, I have left clues as to the original source material. Extracts from the playscript are also included to give a flavour.
I would like to extend an open invitation to all budding musicians and composers to submit their own musical interpretations. I would also welcome interest from actors (age 20-25) who can sing and dance.
The plan is to develop a new collaborative form of musical theatre. Once we get a good working team of lyricists, composers, musicians, actors and designers together we can decide on the final evolution of the piece and arrange copyright accordingly. I would like to submit or even take the piece to Central as a work-in-progress.
From this collaboration, I would like to publish a ‘guerrilla handbook’ on How To Write A Revenge Musical containing drafts, notes, problems and suggestions for other teachers and students who may wish to try something similar.
Ultimately, I would be interested in using all of this as a springboard for a thesis on new art forms and musical theatre. But, most of all, I would love to have the opportunity of working with kind, creative and talented people.
If you like the sound of any of this, please post a comment at http://martygull.blogspot.com/ or get in touch with me through one of the following methods:
I’ll post notes as draft stuff occurs to me (please feel free to skip the academic, intellectual stuff!)
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