Julie Campbell

My first loves were Performance and Literature. My free time as a child was largely spent in going to dance classes ( mostly ballet) and visiting the public library to change my books. I read voraciously.
My working life started in the family businesses . After a return to education I gained a degree and a teaching qualification. I became a Further Education Lecturer. After a master’s degree I eventually became a Head of Department and was in charge of Personnel and Staff Development at Chichester College.

I took early retirement and enjoyed time with my husband and family and pursued various hobbies and undertook voluntary work. Since 2009 I have attended, pretty well continuously, classes and workshops at Chichester Festival Theatre in Acting, Devising and Playwriting.i have performed on both the Minerva and Festival Theatre stages and even , once, at Fishbourne Roman Palace! During lockdown I was a member of CFT’s Elders Company and wrote and performed a videoed monologue that the theatre put, with others, on YouTube. I have written a number of monologues, sketches and short plays.

As well as performing myself , I love going to the theatre to watch a variety of plays. I most enjoy productions that are well constructed regardless of genre. It is lovely to see old favourites but new work can be exciting and thought provoking.

I believe that theatre is an essential part of community life. Creativity can bring great joy to those who are involved in its delivery and also to those to whom it is offered.
As playwrights we must endeavour to deliver as wide and as interesting a dramatic experience as possible.I am sure we can!

Margaret Edwards

I’ve now spent most of my life in Chichester, via an idyllic childhood in Laurie Lee countryside, and a hippie paradise at York University. I’ve picked tomatoes, sold shoes and pies, and worked for the local paper, but most of my time outside family life has been in teaching – exhausting and thoroughly rewarding. I’ve been lucky. It’s been Writing – Teaching – Writing. I’ve come full circle. I started writing at 6, filling exercise books with poems and stories, and now after teaching I have begun again, this time with drama.
Along the way I’ve had some minor success with the poems, and now I am addicted to seeing my small attempts at drama acted out for an audience. I most admire theatre that elicits emotion, whether witty, shocking or profound, especially if woven together. I like walking out of a theatre laughing or crying and then falling asleep thinking about the layers underneath.
Yasmin Reza is a favourite playwright, also Brian Friel, Hare, Stoppard. I’m optimistic about the future of theatre. As it becomes increasingly hard to make theatre commercially viable there may be more pop-up theatre, roosting in empty banks and cafes… Writing will be ever more varied, and individual voices will be valued over tired trends and stereotypes!

Clive Foskett

Clive’s first career was as a Merchant Navy officer on round-the-world passenger liners travelling to Australia, New Zealand, and to remote Pacific islands, including Pitcairn of mutiny on the Bounty fame.

After leaving the sea, he worked in magazine publishing in senior roles, and then set up his own award-winning magazine company, with many diverse subjects ranging from home interest, cars, gardening, to children’s magazines.

It was during this time that he first became involved in helping in the various onboard entertainment shows for passengers.

Having always had an interest in theatre, he took up playwriting in the last few years, and has enjoyed courses at Kingston’s Rose Theatre, Guildford, and Chichester Festival Theatre.

Some of his short plays have been performed before a paying audience at G-Live Guildford, by students from the Guildford School of Acting, and also at their own performance studio.

He has also acted in the Rose Theatre community plays to see what the other side of the coin felt like as an actor.

In one role, he was taught the craft of stage fighting by a professional stuntman, including punching, and sword play.

Note, no fellow actors were harmed during the actual performance, although sometimes close in rehearsals!

Pinter is one of his favourite playwrights, because of that unsettling combination of offbeat but real characters, mixed with comedy but with an underlying menace.

Other interests have included driving race cars, golf, and a lifelong supporter of Brentford FC, all mixed in with a lot of trivia knowledge about all sorts of things!

Clive says that it’s thrilling to have the opportunity for your words come to life in a live performance.

There is that special moment in a theatre show, when the script, the performance, the production, the actors and the audience all gel, and you embark upon a magical journey together.

Plus, the exciting moment as a playwright, is when the characters feel like they have taken over writing the script for you!

Geraldine Garner

After finding work in the City monotonous, Geraldine left her job at Lloyd’s Register and went to Birkbeck College where she gained a BSc in Physical Geography. She then decided to change things up a bit and trained to be an actor at Drama Studio London. She was in “Hysteria” at CFT’s Minerva Theatre, “The Seagull” at The Churchill Theatre Bromley and “Absurd Person Singular” at Cape Town’s Theatre on the Bay, amongst many other theatrical productions. Films include “What Happened to Karen?” filmed in Angell Town Brixton between the 2 Covid lockdowns.

Inspiring future generations with a love of theatre and acting motivates her. She believes all children should go to the theatre and have the opportunity to be in plays before going to secondary school. They need to experience the magic.

Whilst bringing up her 3 children she ran a boutique catering company, coached academics and others to make the most of their voices, was a Costume Designer for BBC Scotland, worked in the wardrobe department at CFT on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, worked in schools directing shows, helping GCSE and A’level drama students. Finally she began writing plays as it dawned on her she could write the plays she was looking for and write roles and stories that were hard to find. That is what bought her to the writing course at CFT where she found encouragement to evolve her playwriting. And here we are…

She doesn’t have a favourite playwright or genre – although if pushed she’d say any historical drama figures highly in what she chooses to watch.

It is the anticipation of a play, the hush before curtain up, the magic that creates the energy we see in theatres, that keeps her fascinated and an avid theatre person in whatever guise is possible.

Paula Glenister

Paula has an eclectic background including working as a lawyer, teaching English and Law, training as a holistic therapist and a postnatal facilitator. She also ran her own business making natural skincare products and running wellbeing courses.

Paula wrote her first chapter story at the age of eight but it wasn’t until many, many (many) years later that she had the courage to take an MA in Creative Writing which she graduated from in 2020. Since then she’s studied character, structure and comedy until she finally felt ready for people to see her writing. She had the good fortune the sign up to a CFT playwriting course and meet her fellow Playweavers.

Paula’s influences are as eclectic as her background ranging from Jane Austen to Terry Pratchett, Tom Stoppard to Caryl Churchill and from Manic Street Preachers to Corrine Bailey Rae. Her favourite genres include murder/mystery and procedural crime dramas, she also loves reading children’s novels, particularly fantasy.

Paula is looking forward to a time when there are as many successful female playwrights as there are male, as many parts for female actors as there are for male actors and when anyone and everyone who has a story, can be heard.

Lesley Mackenzie

Having gone into Repertory Theatre as a student age sixteen I later worked in the UK and America my background being in Stage Management. However I always loved writing and a One Act Play of mine was professionally produced at The Milton Keynes Theatre having won a competition. After retiring at sixty and living in North Wales my other passion being painting I went to Bangor University for a Fine Arts Degree and later ran my own Art Gallery, Studio and Shop. After moving to the South of England I now write with the Play Weavers Group who are encouraged by and meet at Chichester Festival Theatre.
I hope to continue to write and look forward to contributing to theatres
future.

Tim Pitman

Tim is a teacher and has always written theatrical pieces as well as prose and monologues for performance. Currently driven by working on a course organised by the Chichester Festival Theatre. He cites influences being Stephen Berkoff, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh and Alan Bennett. A keen social observer, genres include, black comedy and drama. He is passionate that theatre should remain as a way of bringing original thoughts and performance to wide audiences. Work should entertain and unpick some of the challenges we face in an uncertain world.

Gordon Aspey

From humble beginnings. Gordon, started his own sign and engraving business which he sold after 35 years. He has been married for sixty-six years and his large family extends to a great grand child. He has always enjoyed writing. Early work includes children’s stories and poetry. He has written two novels. His preferred genre is comic non fiction. His daily hope for his writing is that he maintains better health than his computer which raises his blood pressure! He is a keen member of the Play Weavers group.