COMMISSIONING DRAMA: THE PRODUCER AS CO-CREATOR

SEMINAR 1 – COMMISSIONING SCREEN DRAMA FOR GLOBAL AUDIENCES

For many years he was an in-house Development Producer and Script Editor at BBC Drama Production, developing series, serials, and single dramas, including One Child, The Paradise, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Money, The Interceptor, The Last Days of Lehman Brothers and Messiah.

CHAIR:                                Dr Mark Fryers, The Open University

Dr Mark Fryers is a lecturer in in Film and Media at The Open University. He received his PhD from the University of East Anglia in 2016, and has lectured at the University of East Anglia, New York University, and the University of Greenwich. He has written for peer-reviewed publications in screen media, including in the Journal of Popular Television and numerous edited collections. Mark specialises in British and American popular film and television, global screen cultures, and convergent screen medias. Mark has also worked in several capacities as a freelance worker within the film and television industries.

SEMINAR 2 – THE PRODUCER IN DEVELOPMENT OF BROADCAST DRAMA

GUEST SPEAKER:              Heather Larmour, BBC Drama

CHAIR:                                Dr Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill, The Open University

Dónall Mac Cathmhaoill is a lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University. His research interests are in authorship, politics, and structures of production; theatre for social change in post-conflict societies; and identity politics in Irish theatre, film, and broadcast drama.  As a dramatist he has written for BBC Radio 4, BBC TV Drama, BBC Education and others. He was director with leading Irish theatre company Tinderbox, and a producer at Soho Theatre, London, where he ran the programmes for young and emerging professional playwrights. He was nominated for the Imison Award from the Society of Authors for his first radio play, Bull Epic, and for a Sony Award for his Radio 4 Classic Serial, Barry Lyndon. He was a winner of the BBC Double Exposure scheme, and of the Bill Miskelly Award from NI Screen.

SEMINAR 3 – BRINGING WRITERS TO AUDIENCES IN CONTEMPORARY THEATRE

GUEST SPEAKER:              Lisa Goldman, theatre director and writer

Lisa Goldman is a freelance writer, script consultant and one of Britain's most lauded theatre directors. She was Artistic Director of two of the most influential new writing theatre companies in Britain, first as founder and artistic director of The Red Room from 1995 until 2006 and then at the Soho Theatre which she ran until 2010. She has commissioned plays from some of the most significant contemporary writers for theatre, among them Kay Adshed, Anthony Neilson, Dorota Maslowska, Hassan Abdulrazzak, Natasha Langridge and Philip Ridley. She has been primary dramaturg on every new play she directed, and on hundreds of other plays, many winning major awards. Lisa’s book The No Rules Handbook for Writers was cited by The Stage as one of their top 10 training books of 2012 and was an Amazon UK digital bestseller. She has an MA from Goldsmiths in Creative and Life Writing.

CHAIR:                                Dr Oladipo Agboluaje, Playwright and academic