Interview with Shirin Brown about her play My AI Twin

Shirin Brown is a London Playwrights' member from New Zealand (hello to our friends in NZ!). Her new play is on from 29th of July and in this play she tells us about the process and shares her tips for getting your play on. 

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Playwriting in Real Life, the podcast from London Playwrights. There's been lots of busy stuff going on at London Playwrights, and we will be coming back with a full series of the podcast in the late summer. But today we have a guest episode for you. We are speaking to one of our members in New Zealand. It's really exciting for us to know that we have members all over the world. So this is a first for us speaking to a member in New Zealand. But welcome to anybody who might be listening from there and hope to be in touch with lots of new writers, from New Zealand and all over the world soon. So the writer we're speaking today is Sherin Brown, and she's written a new play called My AI Twin, which explores the really interesting and timely topic of using ai. And her play is gonna be on next week, 29th of July. So you can still grab tickets. I just wanna say that this episode of the podcast is a bit rough and ready, because it isn't edited by our usual editor. He's away at the moment. So I am doing my best and just putting it out as it is because I really want you guys to hear this chat with Shirin. There's some loads of important tips about getting your play on, about writing your play, about finishing your play, and I think you'll agree that it's worth listening to, even if it's not fully polished in terms of the edit. But hopefully it's all clear and you enjoy the conversation anyway, so enjoy the podcast I hope that if you are in New Zealand and you are near she in, you'll go and see her play soon. Would you like to introduce yourself first and tell us a little bit about your, what you are doing at the moment and your play? Oh, lovely. My name's Sharon Brown and I live in New Zealand. And, I guess I've always been interested in theater and film. And then when my kids were small, in about 2007, I went to film school at the university. And, it was really difficult for me to stay in touch with the, a film industry. And so I started writing plays and I love it and I love that process. I live on an island and there's a theater here, which is very supportive Artworks theater. And what's amazing is you can write things and then they've got short play festivals, so then you can put them on and see if the writing holds up or see what needs to change in the writing to make it work. And because I do a lot of comedy and a lot of it is in the movement and dialogue that needs to carry while someone's doing some other kind of movement. It's just been, invaluable being able to do that. Yeah, it's really great, isn't it, to have somewhere like that where you can try out work and actually just see it up on its feet.'cause I think so often. It's really, that is a really difficult opportunity to come across, isn't it? If you are sitting at home writing, it can feel very lonely and you don't know whether you're getting it right or it's gonna work. So that's fantastic that you have that opportunity there and it's so exciting for us to hear about, you are in, we are obviously in London and you are in New Zealand, and to hear what's going on there that you've got that opportunity and you've got a theater on the island where you live. And also that we're in touch as well because, that's been something that's been so amazing for London playwrights over the last few years is that we've reached international audiences. I think this works. We just managed to make it work with the time difference. I think. It requires you amazing what, how challenging it's though. Yes. Yeah. And I have to say, like I joined and I think there's the London connection'cause I grew up in Europe, so London playwrights didn't seem alien to me. But I love the work that you do. And I joined, I think two years ago and I tried to make it work for the rap last time and didn't really. Commit to it properly. And this year, January is our slow month, so it's a bit like August. So it's fabulous. You've had Christmas, you've, closed off everything that you needed to do for the end of the year. And then I just had this month where I could go to the beach.'cause obviously it's the summer in the southern hemisphere. And the rest of the time just focus on the writing. And, it was just lovely to get those prompts coming through every day. It was just great'cause I had the ideas, but it was still nice to get some help framing them. And then of course, talking to you about the rewriting, that was really invaluable as well. Just being able to have, a conversation one-on-one and say, Hey, what do you think's working? What do you think's not just get a few more ideas. And I think it's really helped the script and it's working really well now. Fabulous. That's amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. So for those who dunno, rap is our January playwriting competition. Not a competition. It's a challenge, where writers get prompts every single day throughout January. And the challenge is to write a play in a month. So most of you probably who listening probably do know that already. But that's where the play that we're talking about today, that's where it started, isn't it? With wrap, were you working on that for some time before and you used wrap to shape it or was it an entirely a new idea? No, what had happened was in about October November, I thought I should really get my head around this notion of AI twins. But then there comes a point where you are just like, I should really try and find out more about it. So I was part Have you ever come across masterclass? It's I think it's, they have masterclasses with different famous people. Like something Ben around playing the guitar or they have something with, spike Lee on independent filmmaking or whatever. And there were a couple of people there, I don't remember their names, but they were in the, AI twin space and I thought, look, they must be, the top of their game, so I'll just listen to see what they've got to say. And it was really interesting to see. Some of the kinds of things they were talking about, like one guy was saying he's Jamaican and there's a dialect that he knows That's just about extinct. And so he was feeding in information and letters that he knew. And now if he wants to use the dialect, he has a resource that he can go to write some of the stuff that he wants to write. And I thought, oh, that's really po That's really positive. But on the whole, I am, one of those people who's a bit like. Yes, it's a tool. How can we use it as a tool? But we have to be really careful in how it interacts with our creativity. Yeah, so I, and I guess I, I was elected to local government for six years and I did a PhD in elected representation and, women and younger candidates and ethnically diverse candidates and the additional challenges they face. So I felt that this is all coming together in this play, which is about, a woman who's campaigning to be mayor. She gets a bit of abuse. She's really discouraged. And, her partner suggests that maybe a way around it is to use an AI twin. So I try and tap into that thing of, this is how it can work for you. But actually, if you don't think it through properly. It might not be that great an idea. And certainly things like, health industries or education or whatever, there's probably a use, but what is that use? So I was trying to really nut into one aspect of it, which is political representation and how much of that can just be farmed out to an ai. Yeah, it's that sort of exploring that question, isn't it? And that kind of line and the limit. And also bearing in mind the fact that I suppose we are quite early days, aren't we? And it can be misused, AI can be misused or if you don't, and in your players we'll talk about, it can go wrong if you may be, rely on it too heavily and you don't perhaps know enough about it or give it the right prompts. And that's the sort of territory I think we're in at the moment. Maybe in a couple of years or maybe even sooner we. We won't be in that territory because we'll all be experts actually using AI to really help us. But at the moment, we're in that dangerous territory. And I think that's what your play, explores really nicely. So you came up with this idea, you've got this inspiration and then rap happened and you wrote the play. Over, over what's your summer? That's quite funny to think of you. On the beach, thinking about wrap when we are all in the doom and gloom. Absolutely freezing here. Quite jealous of that actually. I'll be thinking of that next year's wrap. so you went through that, Jenny, you've got some sort of summer rewrite process, haven't you? which has also got prompts. So in a sense that's probably the equivalent. And that's quite a new thing for London playwrights. That's right. Yes. So we did something similar. We trialed it last summer, but actually it's the same sort of thing. Exactly what you said about having that downtime. I think for us, our quieter times tend to be January when everyone's just coming back up to Christmas. But you do get that kind of new year motivation and then things go quite and down. I think for us in the summer, because you tend to get fewer people coming to workshops because people are away or they're busy. Obviously for those who are parents as well, the school holidays loom and, so everything does go a little bit quieter. So I think the aim with the summer redrafting is to keep people going, keep people motivated during that time, when it might be a bit quieter than normal. so it's a bit more chilled. because it's not, everyday prompts. They're weekly and they're longer exercises that just get people thinking about their play in more detail. And I think what I've been really hoping with this is people will redraft their wrap plays so that by the end of the year when we come to. Promote RAP again, and people have got that kind of finish because we've been doing rap for so many years now. What I'm aware is that we're encouraging people to start a new play every single year, and they might not fully finish the ones that they're writing. So it's to give that kind of encouragement to, to those who are redrafting. I know that your play, so you went through the process of wrap and I know that you've been working during the rest of the year. You've been working on editing it. I've given you feedback on that. We've had. Really interesting discussions about that, which has been fantastic. And now, you've got to the point where you are having a production of your play soon. So that's very exciting. It is, and it's been a real rollercoaster of a process because what happened was I wrote the play and I put it into the Basement theater, which is a theater that promotes new writing, and they have a, it's in Auckland, so it's not on the island I live, but it's 35 minute boat journey away. So it's our, MA metro. Yeah, the Metropolitan Center, which is close to us. And they were really excited about the play and I said, I. It's like first, second draft stage and they were like no, It'll be fine. Which is why I got hold of you in a panic going, oh, is it gonna be fine? I feel a bit underwritten. So that was really helpful and they've got this amazing scheme whereby they, basically help you with the marketing. They just have people there who can support and they put it into their winter season, so that's why it's going to be performed, next week. Wow. Okay. On the 29th of July to the 2nd of August. Yeah, it's just been really exciting to be part of that. I also applied for funding and didn't get any, so it's really a question of trying to make sure that we fill all the seats to just cover costs.'cause obviously transporting the cast and the set to Auckland is quite expensive. Yeah, so some challenges there around, making sure that you sell tickets, which is the same. It's always the same, isn't it? I think, the finance side of putting on a new play is always really tricky and, just to fill those seats. So how many. How many performances of the play are you having? there'll be five performances. Okay. And, we're getting some people saying, why aren't you doing it on the island? yes, we are gonna do it on the island, but we got this opportunity. So we'll work it later in the year bringing it back here. So yeah, it's five performances. It's about an hour long. It's my first feature length. Play. That was the goal I'd set myself this year'cause I've tended to do short play festivals because that's what the opportunity is and then you just do 10 minutes and you fit in with a festival rather than, having to get your own work. Up, which can be really, tiring, especially if you have to pay for the venue and all the venue costs and do all the ticketing. this has been a really nice transitional sort of supportive structure to move into. Yeah. and it sounds fantastic with the support from the theater in terms of just helping you with that, the producing side, because that's always a challenge as well, isn't it? I think we go on this journey with writing the play, and then that's just the beginning, because then we've gotta try and. Put it on. So what's been the process since? So I spoke to you a while back about redrafting the play, and then obviously you'd already submitted and it was gonna be on. Have you made any more edits since then? What's the development of the play been like? Yeah I can't remember specifically what the changes were in the writing. I know there were some that sort of tightened things up in relationships. I think there were aspects of the relationship that weren't maybe believable or because I was starting with the fact that she was having so many problems being mayor. One of the things that people were reflecting on was why is she actually bothering and we don't really warm to her. I think I've changed that. So she seems like a mayoral candidate and then things happen to make her feel disillusioned. So there's just been things like that and, I think I've added a couple, I think I've added another scene. And, what I find really interesting though is putting the director's hat on and how that's different and how the script changes. When you have that hat on, because a lot of, in some ways, a play by itself is a little bit perhaps overwritten because people are reading it and they just need a bit more support to understand what's actually going on. But when you've got actors, they're carrying some of that stuff visually, so it doesn't need. So much writing. That's both been, interesting and I've enjoyed pairing it back. But then it's also been a challenge for the writers because it's not a devised work, but then I'm saying, yeah, that's really repetitive, or they're just going, you've just said that. And we already know that because of this and which didn't come out quite so much in the writing. I didn't feel when you just have the writing on its own. So I found really, really interesting. And then also just, I don't know if you have this, I was quite surprised in a sense. The play seems to become more a vehicle for the changing relationship dynamics than the actual content of the play. Like in, in film, I don't know if you have the same in plays, but in film we talk about an emotional Line. And so what I find is that when I'm. The emotional line is there, but actually in the written play, it's more about the plot. Yes. Or maybe that was just the way I write and then when I'm seeing it, it's more about the tensions between the characters and it becomes more about their relationship and how that's resolved through the play. I think sometimes writers as well come to it from a different, I know some writers who are very character led and that plot comes out of that character journey. And then for some the plot comes first, and then the character journey is a kind of woven into that to support it to be a kind of vehicle for the plot. And that's something that we've been working on in some of the courses that we've done. I think the redrafting course actually. We talked a lot about how the kind of journey of the protagonist very much ties in with the structure. If you've got a kind of very, linear plot and a one protagonist play, that kind of character journey, the main character journey and the plot, they're very closely linked in that way. And I think as writers sometimes We are passionate about one aspect of it more than the other, and that kind of carries us through, somehow. But it's really interesting to hear what you going back to what you just said there about the difference between hearing your play read by actors, and seeing it up on its feet rather than writing. that's one of the things that we've actually been focusing at the moment, is offering it table reads to writers. Because that exactly what you just said there, the cutting that comes from a table reading. You can almost see the writers in the room when we do those, they've got the script and they've got a pen and they're almost going through it. That can go because the actors are carrying so much of the weight and we don't need as much as we think we need. That's something I say to writers all the time, it's having that confidence in conveying your ideas and thinking, okay, this is. The audience will get it.'cause I think we've got a tendency, as writers, we just wanna make sure that our ideas are clear and we've got a tendency to overwrite in that way. But I do think that there's no substitute for hearing the play out loud and seeing what actors bring to. It's a whole another level, isn't it? Definitely. Actually I did. Something else that I thought was interesting was I did a solo play. It was only 10 minutes, but I took all three characters. And what was inter, what I thought was interesting there is that the back and forth didn't work so well. You had to be really selective. You know how, if you want snappy dialogue or whatever, you have a phrase and then there's a response. It's like a, question, answer or whatever, But in the solo one, you couldn't do that too often because you're jumping from one into the body of one character and another. So you had longer sort of passages. Yes. So I thought that was quite interesting as well. I just thought, it's really interesting how the visual, affects the writing. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And how will that work physically and visually will they act differently to the human character yes. So we were trying to work out, how do we do it? Do we actually try and use AI to generate the character or do we get the character to play themselves, or do we almost have the same character jump from one side of the, room to the other and play the AI and whatever. In the end, because she's reacting to the ai, what we've done is we've recco and we also wanted to be true to theater rather than, showcase ai. We have her, we use Zoom and we recorded her doing an interview with a journalist. And, then she acts like ai and then because her and her husband are actually watching how well this AI is performing in the interview, we've done things like, create kind of spaces so that they can interact and she's in an interview, but she's also naturally in that interview as ai. So we've had to put in like kind of breaths or looks or things that generate pauses to allow the other dialogue to, to flow underneath it. And then a friend of mine looked at it and she goes, but AI doesn't breathe. And I was saying, yeah, but he's trying to do that to make the AI seem more human. But it hasn't really worked. It is a bit like the what if, isn't it? It's not, it's. That we're trying to create ai. No, absolutely. Yeah. And it's more about how, yeah, how we use ai, isn't it? And what the, what's right as well in terms of morally, if you are in a role of responsibility and if you are using AI in. Instead of yourself. What are the moral kind of implications of that rather than, getting too bogged down with the technical side of things and the accuracy there, because I think you could go down a real rabbit hole and you're trying to create this AI character. I'm sure it's on the horizon, but it's interesting and a bit scary at the same time to think about how That might work. I don't know what it's like where you are, but here it feels like this whole thing of AI and AI twins and AI agents has really come up quite strongly in the last six, seven months. So when I looked for the name, my AI twin seven months ago, it, there really wasn't a lot. But now when I look, almost every podcaster has said, oh, look, here's a copy of, here's my AI twin and this is me interacting with them. And can you tell the difference? And so there's a, it just seems to have captured a particular time and place. Yes. And even I, I've got a line in the play where he goes, maybe you could use an AI twin. And she goes, A what? And she doesn't really know what it is. Whereas I think now, even six months later, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who's not standing for election who doesn't know what an AI agent or an AI twin is. Audience, which is an older, probably more women, older audience is probably never going to use AI in marketing or whatever, but is just quite curious. And probably a little bit suspicious. It's just raising the profile, like you said, of that moral dilemma.'cause for me it's a bit like that. If you are campaigning or you're a politician, people expect to see the real you. Yeah. The risk with ai, your AI could be having, merely having a chat to someone and they're like, oh, as we discussed the other day, and you're like, I have no idea what we discussed the other day because it wasn't me, even though it looked my, like me. Yeah. And I think it doesn't sit well, does it? When you, when we think about as well, it's like people in politics and local politics as well, and people in the community. It doesn't really sit well, does it? Because it feel, we feel, that there's a laziness about it in terms of not actually being themselves and doing the work and talking to people in their local area. It feels a bit disingenuous, apparently the Auckland Theater Company, I think it was them, used an AI sort of like little. Avatar thing to book tickets and to explain to people what was on. And people got really annoyed because, theater is about live engagement and they didn't wanna be talked to by, by an avatar. Interesting. Yeah, there's a lot in all the new developments now. There was one guy, did you see there was one guy who apparently died and his sister used AI for the victim statement. For him to talk about how he felt, oh no, I didn't see that. Another one was about how, there are dating apps now where your AI agent can meet their AI agent and find out if you are actually gonna be compatible before you actually meet the person. I was like whoa. That's crazy, isn't it? I think, like you said before, it's moving so fast, isn't it? And we don't really know where it's gonna go. But these things that would've seemed insane. And it's, we're laughing now that seems a bit crazy still, but it's totally possible. But even a year ago, we wouldn't have been talking, like you say, the conversation that we had around redrafting your play, we were talking about slightly different things, what we are now.'cause it has moved so quickly. I think when we spoke maybe six months ago, it was okay. Could this happen? Could this, but now it definitely could. it's almost a different conversation'cause it is moving so fast. So it's all very exciting in terms of, so the play's actually on, next week, did you say? So how's all the prep going? is it all ready to go? Oh God, we're having the, last minute. Oh my God. People dunno their lines. And then of course, because there are technical difficulties. That's my lesson as well. I try and structure things as a director so that people. Are not overwhelmed at the beginning between props and costuming and lines and blocking and blah, blah, blah. So I try and structure it so we, it's a little bit more led by them, but also we go for the blocking and then we at layer on those other things. But now push is coming to shove and we just need to, work on The prop work and the transitions. And then there are also things where there's some interaction between, a character that's on stage and the AI voice. And so all the timing of that. so it just feels like there's a lot happening, but I'm confident they will get there. And we're all in it together, so it's all good. I think that's the beauty of theater, isn't it? Some of the nights can be better than other nights, and it depends what's going on for people. And for me, it's always that thing of staying connected. As long as you stay connected, then you create an energy, which is just really interesting to watch. Which is really the magic of theater, So for me it's trying to inspire people to stay connected in that way. Even if the lines, they might drop something or they're not sure, or they're nervous and there's an audience or whatever, but just to try and stay connected to each other. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's part of the experience, isn't it? I think it's sometimes if there's a line dropped or something, it's just part of the audience and the collective experience, and it's not, it doesn't make or break it in any way, does it? Oh, and I thought you'd like this, I thought. So we've gotta find some songs to put on at the beginning and have you come across, what are they called? I think they're called Velvet Sundown. No. No. Okay. So Velvet Sundown have made a bucket of money, but they're an AI generated band. And, all their songs are completely ai. The look of the band is all AI generated. They've got film clips, all ai, and they've had millions of views online and what they've, the person who's created them is just tuck them into other kinds of playlists of similar music, and that's how they've increased in popularity. So I feel like sticking one of their songs audience playlist, just to, yeah, that would be interesting. Yes. That sounds fantastic. It's really a terrible thing because you know that it's created out of music that's. It's like a large language model, so it's just taking all the music that's been created. Generating something, but also, musicians make so little money anyway, so to suddenly have someone just riding the wave of that with AI generated music, it just seems a bit weird. I wonder where the aura is of things when we just have, comedians using AI jokes or musicians just creating AI music. But yeah. Yeah, there's so much to think about, isn't there? And yeah, it's weird for us to think about us enjoying that music that it probably, it might sound good, but it does not authentic in a way.'cause it's not from that musician. So in terms of, your play's been on, it sounds like it's been on, it's been on a journey, but quite actually quite a. Quite a fast journey really in the grand scheme of things.'cause I think sometimes it can take a really long time. So I'm sure that's come with its own challenges as well. do you have any advice for other writers who might be, they might be just starting their plays or they might do wrap this year and they might be looking to get a play on. Do you have any advice or any tips? I think finishing something is really important. And I think sometimes people have an idea, but an idea and a script are really different. So I think it's really persevering. And I also think the writing journey is an individual journey. And I think, I used to think it was about having a special pin and sitting down in a, at the, in the leather. Chair with the fountain pen and somehow, amazing ideas would come to me. yeah, no, that doesn't actually happen. But I do find, yeah, so I think for me the process is just being. Alive to things and seeing what connections in the environment and testing ideas out on people. And then I wake up in the middle of the night and I think, oh, wow. That's interesting. And then I never have a pen and paper by the side of my bed, but I should,'cause I think I do have great ideas or they always seem great in the middle of the night, but they might be absolute shy. They're always quite impressive to me and I'm like, oh, I must write that down. Yes, I know. Then it seems to be forgotten by the morning. Yeah. one thing is finishing it and then I think not being. Embarrassed to show it to people, because it's amazing how you think. I can't really get anywhere else. I'm stuck. And then you show it to someone and they go, oh, I thought there's a really nice relationship between these two people. Or What about if this happened? And you're like that's just not part of the play. But then you think about it and you think, oh, but it could be. So I think it's being open to those kinds of, things. And then of course, getting the support from you guys has been great. I really love the prompts. I thought they were really useful because they just kickstarted you and gave you something to think about. That's Great. Yes. Some really good advice there. And keep applying to things, competitions or'cause I didn't think my play was good enough to go. Into production at all. And they were just like, nah, no, we'll take it. You'll just get it there. And sure enough, the pressure of having to finish it meant that I reached out to you and just, it was just alive to me instead of just sitting in a drawer feeling a bit like, oh, I don't know if it's good enough. Oh, it doesn't feel good enough. Yeah, being accepted was a really big part of pushing it. Yes. Yeah. And I think what comes across there from what you've done is and what other people can take from this, is the fact that you did just jump straight in and take that opportunity. I think that you could have quite easily said, oh, do you know what? It's not ready yet, so I won't do it because it's not ready. But actually you have got it there because you've got that deadline and you could have said, oh, I'll do it next year instead, but then it might have been in your draw for another six months. And we do things slowly. So I think I'd encourage people to take those opportunities. We talk, we do talk a lot about kind of making sure your place submission ready and not sending off first drafts or second drafts. But if an opportunity presents itself, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take it. Because you can then put the work in and it'll obviously give you that deadline as well, which you knew you had the urgency of performances. Of production as well. You have to make it work and I'm sure it will pay off. And I think the other thing is just writing more. I think people do think, oh, I've written one thing and it wasn't very good and I'm not good at this, so I'll just take up poetry. And it's actually you. You just have to keep pushing through. You actually have to write a few different things that just don't quite work. Yes. And then also. I think the other thing is around, oh, I've forgotten. Lost my train of thought. It doesn't matter. Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. And I think from what I've seen, so we've been, we started London Playwrights. Originally it was a blog. So we've been going a long time, and some of our members have. Been there from very early on. And one thing that I've seen really clearly is the writers who just keep going and do write as much as they can. Do try and write more and keep going. Even when, like they say, you write something, it doesn't work. They'll write something else or they'll pursue that. They'll get feedback. Those writers, it's paying off. For them. And I see that all the time. I think we do buy into this sort of narrative sometimes of the someone being made a star overnight. they've written their very first play and they've sent it off, to a big theater and it's produced. But actually, I don't really believe in that at all. Like I think that even it might look like that, and that might be what the newspaper says. It's probably really just the first play that they've got produced. They've probably been writing and chipping away at it for a long time. And I think that's what I'm really noticing. Those writers who keep going, they are, producing their own work or, even if they're not produced yet, they're getting better and better in their plays. Getting better each time. So I think that it doesn't sound exciting or romantic does it, but it's just persevering and plugging away really. I think the other thing actually is also being part of a theater community, and as I said, I feel incredibly blessed that I'm on an island where there is a theater community. And over a period of years, you get to work with different people. They see your staff, people come. To the theater and they go, oh, I came because I really like the kind of stuff that you do. And it's really reassuring and affirming. So I think that's another nice thing to link into, whether that's a writing group or if you're lucky enough to be part of a community theater. And we were really lucky because someone said, oh, why don't we do a short play festival? And a short play is 10 minutes. So that was a really great opportunity for people to just have a go. And then over time people actually just get a lot better so that, every festival we've had about four or five of them. Each one is so much better than the one before. So that's a really nice thing to do. If you've got a little community and a theater or even a community hall or a space, suspension of disbelief, you can do it anywhere. Yes. And I agree with that. I think in terms of the community, that's a big thing at London Playwrights that we try and nurture and encourage. And I think just even starting very small, I think for us even we have a, the London Playwrights WhatsApp group, for example. Even just chatting in that sometimes, especially throughout something like rap, it's like, how's everyone getting on? This is my play, it's gonna be on. And just that nice kind of community where people say, yeah, well done, or I'll come and see it if I can. Even that is so motivating. And I think, like you say, from there you can build your own. If you are in a particular area and you realize there are a few playwrights there, you could just be in the community center. You could be in someone's living room and reading out your plays. Just takes it to the next level, doesn't it? When you start to share your work and hear it out loud. And I always think it's a journey where you write the play, you redraft it, then you hear it out loud and it just snowballs from there. So it is really important. Yeah. And I'm hoping that we can create a bit of a community.'cause I really, I'm so jealous of all of you guys in the uk'cause it's oh yeah, I'm gonna be up in Edinburgh. I'll come to this. And it's just. So cool. But I think there's a few New Zealanders now in that group. So I might just put it out to them to say, Hey, come up to Auckland and see yes. The other thing I was gonna say is also this thing of having a good concept. What I noticed with this is a concept that people can understand really quickly, and I think that's really helped the play, certainly in terms of going to the basement. Like they could get it really easily. It's not so it's about a guy who. Thinks he's a cloud, but then he sees something else and then this happens and it's about his relationship with his dog, and you're going, what, where? Sorry. I guess it would be what we'd call in films a little bit more high concept. Like a woman's got this problem, she's been abused. Her solution is to get an AI twin, and people can just see straight away that this is possibly not the best idea. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, you can see, I agree with that. I think that's a great, and that sort of ties in with, having that pinning down your ideas, doesn't it? When we talk about pitching and what's your play about? Just being able to say in a sentence, okay. It's about this, That clarity helps you then shape the play because you know in your mind, okay, this is about a woman who decides to get an AI twin and we can see, the audience can see straight away that those possibilities for problems and conflict, they just pop up. But I think that as writers, if we. Really interrogate ourselves and be like, okay, this is what my play is about. At the heart of it, there could be other things happening around that, but if you can say in a sentence or so, I think that will come across in the writing because it would be clearer. Absolutely. Yeah. are you working on anything interesting at the moment you can share? No, mainly just lots of London playwright stuff. That's all obviously very exciting all of the time. I'm plugging away in the background on my own plays. But have limited time at the moment. But we are doing some exciting stuff. Obviously. We've got our summer redrafting, which is, just kicked off yesterday. So we've got lots of meetups and things like that happening over the summer. And then lots of. Prep for, autumn term of workshops as well. So we will have to, hearing about the theater community in New Zealand, we will have to make sure that we run some at the appropriate times, I think, so that we can, get people in without expecting you guys to get up at. Something ridiculous like 3:00 AM or something like that. But definitely it's the, and also I think that, summer, winter timetable, it's, I can't remember. We either a 10 hour difference or a 12 hour difference. Yes. But I think the 10 hour difference is slightly EAs, no, I can't remember. One is easier than the other. Yes. I think that the daylight saving time doesn't help the confusion with the time zones, but I'm sure it's something that we can make work. So that would be really exciting. And also, so before we finish, and most important thing, how do people get tickets to come and see your place? Hopefully we're gonna have lots of listeners in New Zealand now and, tell them how they can get tickets and where the plays on. Lovely. So it's on at the Basement Theater, which is just off Queen Street, lower Grays Avenue, and you can get the tickets from I Ticket. And there's a range of prices between 20 and$30. And it's on from the 29th to the second, 29th of July to the 2nd of August, six 30 to seven 30. So it's really short and it's not do something afterwards or get home, That's perfect. Great timing. Yeah, hope lots of people come and see it and I hope that it all goes really well. thank you so much for talking to us today and yeah, I'll be keen to know how it all goes. Oh lovely. Thank you. if you do come and see it, and you've heard this, come and say hi.'cause I'd love to make a connection with other people who are connected to London Playwrights. It's been so supportive of me in different ways and you and Emily are fabulous and, yeah, it would be nice to connect with other people here. So thank you. So thank you so much to Sharin for that fantastic interview. There's some really great tips in there and it's really brilliant to know how someone has gone from having this initial idea to working on a play throughout rap, our January playwriting challenge, and then to have it on all in the space of. Less than a year. We're still only in the summer. So that's really exciting. Thank you so much and do book tickets. If you are local to Shirin, I'm sure she would love to see you and say hello at her play. If you enjoyed this podcast, please do subscribe and listen to previous episodes. As I said earlier, we will be back soon with regular episodes. So do. Drop us an email if there's any topics you'd like us to cover or you fancy being interviewed because we are always keen to share stories of your successes and writer's plays, and to help you spread the word about your work. Do check out London Playwrights blog.com and also consider becoming a member. If you like our work, we are supported entirely by our members, and every single signup helps us to keep going, to create all the resources, to keep bringing you the weekly roundup and to keep bringing you challenges like Wrap, where you can start writing plays and. Be part of our community. So do check out our work@londonplaywrightsblog.com and we look forward to welcoming you as a member. Thank you, and I will see you soon. Bye.