Play Club 2020 Play #2 – Lungs by Duncan Macmillan

One down, three to go!

We received some fantastic entries for the first Play Club 2020 window in response to Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones; with writing from vibrant and unique voices, so it was a difficult task to choose a piece for the reading. However, we managed to make our selection and the chosen play for the first window is….

Methods of Killing Your Leader by Simon Jenner

An intro to Simon, from Simon:

Bit life-changing! Thank you LPW. A tale of two mentors; partner Carole Bremson and novelist Liz Hyder who ordered me to join LPW. Despite poetry awards, National Poetry Competition prize, I’m a hopeless self-promoter though published 130 poets. Never thought I could write play-plots, despite theatre family, just dialogue. Then Carole, a director, says start reviewing 220 plays a year. Click. When launching British Library Poet in the City poetry sequence PITC co-ordinator and actor Gabby Meadows and Carole demand it gets dramatized. Still refining, bit clotted! Written 5 other full-lengths; 3 monologues have been included on podcasts. 

Lungs by Duncan Macmillan

Winner of the Best Play of 2013 Award (Off West End Awards), Lungs is a modern play dealing with themes of family, adulthood and growing up in this generation and society today. Duncan Macmillan’s piece revolves around two characters and charts their relationship in a fragmented style; leaving an audience to fill the gaps in between and play catch-up throughout. The play debuted in 2011 at the Studio Theatre in 2011, whilst also holding it’s UK premiere in the same month in a production directed by Richard Wilson. Lungs was most recently revived for the stage at the Old Vic in London with Claire Foy and Matt Smith cast as W and M respectively.

You can get a copy of the play from Amazon for £8, and there are also cheaper versions online by searching “Lungs Script”. 

Submissions

We challenge you to write a 10 page play (12 font size, please!) in direct response to what you’ve read.

Our submission window in response to Lungs will be open from
Monday 11th May – Sunday 31st May

(So please don’t send us scripts before then)

We’ll accept submissions from LPW members only, so if you’re not one yet but are wanting to submit – what’re you waiting for? It costs less than a cup of coffee a month and you get exclusive access to workshops, events and projects from us!

A blog post and email will be sent your way once the window is open with full details of how to submit, but until then, happy reading for this month, and don’t forget to join the Facebook group discussion!

You’re also more than welcome to just read the plays and join in some discussion with us about them on the members Facebook group! We’ll open up a discussion forum on there at the same time we open for submissions, so do feel free to just read along with us if you’d prefer.

Image source: Oberon Books – Image from Playtext of Lungs