These last couple months have been exciting ones for my short play, The Pictures of Dora Gray. I’ve seen it read by two different casts. And at the end of the month, I’ll see it performed at the Tower Theatre’s Writers’ Room showcase.

In Oscar Wilde’s classic novel, The Pictures of Dorian Gray, a young man makes a supernatural bargain to preserve his beauty. My play features a woman who decides to use her beauty as a bargaining chip. It’s about gender, art, death, and the costs of greatness. 

It was a heady week in October when I met the cast of Dora Gray for the showcase and heard their first read through of the play. I’d met the director and assistant director earlier, and was confident the play was in good hands. Colin Guthrie gave a lot of thought to characters and relationships, and we collaborated on a few revisions. Then came the read-through. It was surreal to watch other people perform the words and story I wrote. I admit I cried a bit. 

That same week, Dora Gray was one of three short plays performed at Barons Court Theatre’s scratch night, The Sunday Fix. I watched in real time as a director directed it and a group of actors rehearsed and acted it out. At the end of the night, the plays were performed and the audience gave feedback to the writers.

It was a fascinating process to see the play evolve, and to watch two different directors’ takes on it. Not to mention meeting some great theatre people! I can’t wait to see a fully staged production after this.

If you’re in London, you can watch the Writers’ Room December showcase between 29 November and 3 December.