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The Table Read was held on the 8th of January 2020 at Holborn Libary, London.

DYSPLA sent a call out looking for neurodivergent storymakers, based in England, that were keen to write a script for screen or stage. We chose 2 and offered a 12-month program of development and support.

The residency was tailored to each resident and took place in London throughout 2019, along with Surgery Scripts sessions, dramaturgy, a rehearsed reading, and mentoring.




RESIDENTS


Dr Julia Pascal is a playwright and theatre director. She was the first woman director at the National Theatre. Her stage plays have been produced internationally and have won prizes. Her awards have included a NESTA Dreamtime Fellowship, an Alfred Bradley BBC Award , Moondance Award and she was a finalist in the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Award of Excellence in Playwriting. Julia was nominated for the 2017 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award. LONDON MEDEA - Feature Film

Directed by Lefteris Parasyris

A modern Medea arrives in London today. She is a Kurdish soldier fleeing persecution in Turkey. Medea, 33, now an asylum-seeker working secretly as a cleaner in a gym, meets thirty year old body-builder Jason, whose real name is
Mohammed. He is the son of an Iraqi cab driver. They fall in love and Medea gives birth to their twin boys. When Sahir, Jason's father, discovers that Jason is living with a Kurd, Sahir demands that Medea be abandoned. Under pressure, Jason ultimately rejects Medea and marries his cousin Glauke. Medea is betrayed by her lover and, to revenge herself, commits an extraordinary act of aggression against those who seek to destroy her life.
Maike Hale-Jones is a writer, performer and artist educator currently living and working in London. Maike trained in screenwriting at London College of Communication. As well as screenplays she writes short stories and personal essays that have been commissioned for organisations such as the Cubitt Gallery and Open Source. Maike is the front woman of post-punk band Marcel Wave and has a volume of poetry and short stories set to be released with Makina Books in 2020.
Hunters Moon - TV Pilot

Directed by Janice Sutherland 

Set in 1990 in Horsefall - a fictional, isolated, post industrial Yorkshire town. The discovery of teenager Diana Warren’s body in a disused canal tunnel sets off a series of eerie events that test the already fragile sanity of those investigating. Detectives Trevor Amos and Laura Winter must hold their nerve whilst they uncover the dark secrets hidden by Horsefall’s fractured community to find the killer of Diana, a remarkable but troubled young woman.

DYSPLA Residency Table Read - 8th Jan 2020 - Holborn Libary, London.


    • “Do you have a story you're dying to tell? Something so raw and close to the bone it scares you? Maybe it's too risky to make or too dirty to write down, or maybe the idea has more bark than bite and you don't know which is scarier. Maybe you just don't know how to write it down because you have never written a script before. Maybe you’re not a writer. Maybe you are something else. Maybe you do not know what you are, but you know that if you don't tell your story, it will rot inside you and you might lose your inner spark, or worse, your will to live.”




    SURGERY SCRIPTS Since 2010 we have supported over 200 writers and directly worked with over 700 artists through Surgery Scripts (SS), our script development workshops primarily designed for the dyslexic and neurodivergent creatives. SS offers 4 writers per session an opportunity to work with professional directors and actors on around 15 minutes of their script. Each is performed and the writers receive feedback from the an audience of professional writers, directors, actors, producers. Click here to find out more.
    NEURODIVERSIT
    The neurodiversity paradigm was initially embraced by individuals on the autism spectrum, but subsequent groups have applied the concept to other developmental conditions such as ADHD, developmental speech disorders, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysnomia and intellectual disability; mental health conditions such as bipolarity, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, sociopathy, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and Tourette syndrome.
    DYSLEXIA “Dyslexia a ‘specific learning difficulty,’ which means it causes problems with certain abilities used for learning, such as reading and writing. Unlike a learning disability, intelligence isn’t affected. It’s estimated that up to 1 in every 10 to 20 people in the UK has some degree of dyslexia.” NHS.uk

    NEURODIVERGENCE
    “Sometimes Abbreviated as ND, neurodivergent means having a style of neurocognitive functioning that diverges significantly from the dominant societal standards of ‘normal’. Neurodivergent people include dyslexics, dyspraxics, AD(H)D, autistics (including those with Asperger’s), dyscalculics, OCD, dysgraphics, Tourettes, etc.” The Westminster AchievAbility Commission for Dyslexia and Neurodivergence 2018.


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