An Introduction from Peter Reeves

Posted by Peter Reeves Jul 26, 2008

Hi guys. Just a quick entry to introduce myself. My name is Peter Reeves and I write and perform under the name Reeves Peterson.

In this topic I’m going to give my readers all the practical advice I can about writing for the stage and writing for the screen.

As for what I’m up to at the moment, I recently completed writing a musical version of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams for the Take Away Theatre Company. Some of the things I learnt from this process I detailed in my recent article Adapting a Children’s Book into a Musical. It was a special adaptation in that one of the requirements of the script was for it to only feature two actors. This was quite a challenge but I got there eventually.

But what I’ve found most interesting about this project so far is the creation of a new character not in the original story. Because of the number of characters in Hansel and Gretel it’s always played (in stage versions) by four actors with one actor doubling up as the step mother and witch. The problem with this is the woodcutter has nothing to do for a lot of the story.

This is fine in the original story but on stage it means you are paying an actor to do very little for much of the play. Therefore I have created a puppet rat character who will reside in the Gingerbread House. This has opened up some tremendous comedy opportunities. It also means that I can extend the stories key theme of hunger and poverty.

I’ll keep you posted of how the script is coming on over the coming weeks.