The Journey So Far

I'm writing a play based on Eva Ibbotson's wonderful novel Journey to the River Sea.

The book was published in 2001 and has many admirers of all ages. Among them are me, Rosamunde Hutt, Artistic Director of Theatre Centre and Tony Graham, Artistic Director of Unicorn. In 2002, Tony and Ros discovered they shared the feeling that the book could work on stage, and started to plan a co-production for the new Unicorn Theatre, due to open in London later this year. I joined as writer early in 2003 and Ros and I have been working together to create the piece since then.

In May 2004 we worked on the piece for a week with a group of third year student actors at Drama Centre London , along with the project's designer, Nettie Scriven, and its composer, Matthew Bailey. Next month we'll be working together again for a week with another group of actors and the rest of the creative team. We then start rehearsals next January and open in early February 2006.

In about two weeks I'm going to Brazil on a trip which is in part to research the writing of the play. I thought I'd try out this blog as a way to share that process with the rest of the team working on the piece. It may have other effects as well - let's see what happens.