Professionals to perform young writer's first play

Meg Vaughan says it will be "amazing" to see her words brought to life

A young writer is set to see her name in lights as the first play she has ever written will be performed on stage by professional actors.

Meg Vaughan, 25, from Shrewsbury, said she had very little theatre experience before she set pen to paper as part of a six-month script-writing course run by the South Shropshire theatre company, Pentabus.

The rural performance group offers training to a selection of young writers aged 16 to 30 years old, who are based in the West Midlands or Shropshire, every year, with the end of the course culminating in a live production of their work.

Ms Vaughan said it was going to be "amazing" to see her words brought to life.

She had previously written long-form fiction in the hope of "writing a book one day", she said, but had decided to "branch out" when she heard about the company's course.

"It's a really rare thing to get someone to put on your play," she added.

With her limited theatre experience, Ms Vaughan decided to do some research by attending live performances, which included National Theatre Live.

As part of the Pentabus course, Ms Vaughan took part in workshops to learn how to build tension and create characters.

She said she was still working on her script but described the play as "an old man walks into a bar type of scenario".

"He has a mysterious side to him, and the bartender is quite bored, so it all unravels from there."

'It's hard to only rely on dialogue'

"It was difficult to condense all my thoughts down into dialogue," Ms Vaughan said "In my previous work I have been able to rely on descriptions."

She added that the play must only be 10 minutes, and the time restraint had offered an additional challenge.

However, she described the first read-through with professional actors as a "game-changer".

"You hear it aloud for the first time, and you can then see what people bring to it and see how what you have written is brought to life."

Her play will be performed alongside the work of eight other young playwrights on 9 and 10 July at the Assembly Rooms in Ludlow.