Beth's story?

So I've had some pretty great news today - the rep committee have agreed that publicity can begin for the play. Just means I need to finish writing the damn thing! As it stands now, Act 1 is six scenes and 29 pages long; Act 2 has three out of four scenes written and is only 12 pages long - eek. But I'm not too worried, I'm expecting the final scene to be the lengthiest but I reckon I'll gain a lot of material from the workshops with the actors.

Speaking of which, I had a quick drink with Emma this evening who I've worked with briefly before. As a woman she read the play differently and had an interesting perspective on the characters. Interestingly, she felt the male characters were more well rounded but Beth just comes across as a bit of a bitch. It is possible that the actress that plays Beth will need to work hard to bring through her sensitivities. However, she does go from quite nice to very nasty in a very short space of time so I think I'm going to go back and add a bit of backstory for Beth.

I also need to establish what makes Peter stay at the house - why doesn't he just up and leave; what's keeping him there? What drives the magnetism between Beth and Peter?

It's going to take some fiddling around with the whole thing but this is why I'm going to workshop the play - it's highly likely that the actors will be able add to the characters and story (and probably help remove things too) that I'm not too worried at this stage.

Plan? Finish a complete draft in the next fortnight and workshop within a month. Easy, eh? (Yes, you're right - those are indeed my Famous Last Words.....!!)