It Really Happened: From Page to Room

August 8, 2025.
My play was finally brought to the stage. This was part of The Green Room Project, where ten of us were given space to write and share short plays for the first time. Earlier thoughts from the start of the process are gathered in two posts: A Small Beginning, A Real Step, and A First Step onto the Stage .

It wasn’t a full production with sets or costumes—more of a staged reading—but just having something to share, not as a script but as a realised piece, felt quietly meaningful.

A small moment, perhaps, but one that made me feel I could finally introduce myself, even tentatively, as a writer.

Writing a play was a new kind of experience. With essays or fiction, I was free to express emotions directly. Reviews and critiques had to be analytical. But a play moves forward through action and dialogue alone—through what is said and done. That made it a different kind of challenge.

In an essay, I could simply write, “I spent most of my time feeling lonely,” and that would be enough. In a play, I had to ask: what would this person say or do to let the audience understand that loneliness? It became, in a way, a meta-cognitive exercise—thinking not just about what a character feels, but how that feeling might be perceived.

Writing a ten-minute script with this in mind took effort, but it’s changed the way I approach fiction, too. I now find myself wondering, “What would my characters do if they felt this way?”
Where I once focused on conveying inner states, I’m now also thinking about what those emotions look like. That, I think, is the most lasting gift of The Green Room Project.

I discovered the project by chance, applied, and was fortunate to be selected alongside nine other writers. The writing was mine alone, but the feedback—from other writers, the moderator, the director, and the actors—was generous and deeply helpful. I hope my own feedback offered something in return.

Writing can be a solitary process, sometimes painfully so. To find companions who could share not only that solitude but also the quiet struggles of writing—that felt rare and meaningful.

I’ve always been someone who’s writing something, but this was one of the few times I could present my work to the world in such an intentional, official way.
And I was so grateful for the moments when those close to me came to the showcase, listened to what I had written, and celebrated with me.

This wasn’t my first time on or around a stage. Back in university, I tried acting and directing through a student theatre group. But writing a play was entirely new. I hadn’t imagined I ever would. Somehow, 2025 has brought me opportunities I never saw coming.

Now that I’ve written a ten-minute piece, I find myself wanting to try something longer, a full play, maybe fifty or sixty minutes. And not just a reading, but a complete production with sets, movement, and light.
I’ve climbed one small hill. Now I find my eyes turning to the higher ground.

For the past two or three decades, my writing has centred on inward fulfilment. But something seems to be shifting. Since 2025, I find myself thinking more about connection, outcome, and recognition.

I’m more drawn now to writing as a result, not only as a process. Whatever shape it takes, I hope the work to come finds its way to more readers. To be heard. To be seen.