Sayan Kent: Asian playwright

Sayan Kent describes how Kali Theatre Company helped bring her play "Another Paradise" to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the support they provide for Asian women playwrights.

Video Transcription

Sayan Kent: "This is my first full production. This play was read at a writing festival last year and I'd had another play read the year before. I've been writing for quite a long time, but I was an actor for a long time and a composer, and I used to perform in a music group and stuff, so we've done stuff up here before. So it's taken this time for me to really get something proper together, or finished, I suppose."

Creative Choicesº: "How did you get this first production to the Fringe Festival?"

Sayan Kent: "Kali Theatre Company is about encouraging Asian women writers, or women from any Asian background -- I'm from a mixed background, myself. They were putting a call out for new plays. They read the play, they liked it, then we read it in the new writing festival that Kali has every year. But they also offered some dramaturgical support on that, so I had a dramaturge reading it through, making suggestions, some cuts -- it was quite long originally so we cut it down a bit. And then earlier this year, Janet [Steel, Kali Theatre's Artistic Director] decided that she wanted to bring it to Edinburgh, and it was as simple as that, really.

"It's quite a big effort, I couldn't have done it on my own. It had to be a company that did it, because it does cost money and it's a lot of organisation. I know some people do do it on a shoestring and lots of students come up, but still someone's got to coordinate it. You need to get the good reviews in, you need to get an audience in, you've got to do the work yourself, very much. So we're all going out leafletting, which everyone is in Edinburgh."

Creative Choicesº: "How does Kali Theatre Company help new playwrights?"

Sayan Kent: "As a woman, you can send a play in to Kali. They will always read it, and they will always come back to you with a response to your play. And they'll be very very encouraging, because that's what it's all about -- the whole company is built on encouraging new writing from this area. So do it, you never know! And even if they don't take your play up, what they do is set up dramaturgical support, or they have writers' workshops, so you can be at any level of writing, you can be an absolute beginner and they'll nurture you through years.

"It doesn't matter what the subject matter is -- it's [Another Paradise] not a piece about Asian issues, that's not the issue at all. It's about just writing what you want to write. That's the important thing, what you feel strongly about."