Writing 'Master Class' [Paperback]

Writing Master Class is a biography of David Pownalls play, Master Class (1983), from conception to coming of age.

Threaded through the account of the inception and development of the piece are twists of authorial life-story necessary for the telling. Whereas a novel or poem can be kept a secret until it is properly finished, a play has to go out to meet the people early. On the day the script is put into the hands of actors, the soul of the thing passes out of the author's control. It can be bent, battered, warped  or improved within its being far beyond expectations. As a drama of dictatorship in art and the cleverness needed to evade its worst manifestations, Master Class has been at large for thirty years, produced in twenty countries, in some several times. What has been done to it, how it has fared, is touched upon but the main story in this book is the making of the piece. A fascinating insight into the playwrights craft.

David Pownall was born in Liverpool and he is a graduate of Keele University. He was dramatist in residence with the Century and Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster and co-founder of Paines Plough Theatre Company with John Adams. His internationally-performed plays includeMusic to Murder By,An Audience Called Edouard,Beef,Livingstone and SecheleandMaster Class. His most recent new play wasGetting the Pictureat The Lyric, Belfast. Theatre awards include the John Whiting Prize forBeef, the New York Theatre Yearbook, the LS Directors' Award forLivingstone and Sechele, and many others. David Pownall won the Writers' Guild Award for Radio Drama Tennyson and Edison in 2013. He has published ten novels and a collection of short stories.