Madame Arkadina Work In Progress ImageHi folks,

It’s time to introduce my little work to the world and you’re the first to meet it :D

The following in an adaptation (by me) of the Work-In-Progress tag circulating among YouTube’s writing community. I don’t know who started it but if you do, please let me know in the comments so I can say thanks properly.

What is the working title of your play?

The Fall of the Virgin.

Where did the idea come from?

The idea came from watching a documentary about the rise of Christianity, I began to wonder what it must have been like to live during the eradication of the old religion while still being a believer. I mean a belief is a deep thing, it’s not going to just go away because they law starts telling it to. I couldn’t find any historical evidence of what life was like for people once their faith had been outlawed, so I wrote it myself.

What genre is your WIP?

Tragedy.

Choose the actors for the movie version.

Me: (in a rising pitch) Movie?! I can’t even.

Faints.

One sentence Synopsis of your play.

Metella is in love; she is also a Vestal Virgin, but as political upheaval threatens everything she knows, where does her loyalty lie?

Will your WIP be self-produced or staged by a company?

Produced by someone else, hopefully. Anywhere that’ll have me ;)

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I didn’t work on it continuously, in fact there were two years when I didn’t touch it, I started in 2009 and the first draft was finished in 2013. But I only found my ending this year! In the middle of a hypnotherapy session. But shhhh, don’t tell anyone ;)

What other plays/books/movies would you compare your story to?

Oh my goodness, you’ve stumped me. All the way through writing all I could think was does this sound too much like whatsit? does this remind me of such and such, is it too derivative. And now I can’t think of anything it compares to. I’m going to have to work on this one. 🤔

Who or what inspired you to write the play?

When I began writing, the idea looked very different in my head – the original plan was to write a monologue to develop my skills as an actor by more fully understanding another element of a production. Somehow, the more I tried to write the monologue, the bigger the story became, the more characters showed up and the more I fell in love with it.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It has three female leads, who are all throwing themselves against the big questions in life – life, death, faith, politics, loyalty and human fallibility – the ones historically reserved for men.