Red Teapot provided a very civilised start to the day at 10am with tea, cakes and networking in the Arena Bar. They’re around until 1pm to talk about life, love and theatre, so come down for your elevensies and catch some engaging conversation with artists and theatre professionals alike.

Soho Theatre will be helping you to develop your own voice in our workshop at 1pm – if you’ve got work you need to take to the next level or just want to explore the process of creating style, character and theatricality, this workshop is not to be missed. This is the last workshop of the festival, so make sure to grab it while you can!

5×5 will be stopping by at 2pm for another whistle-stop tour of their works. These five ten-minute plays are a brilliant and engaging glimpse into new theatre, and the eclectic nature of the performances means you’ll never be bored. This is their last performance at the festival, so come along and see it for yourself before they’re finished!

We’re on the edge at 4pm with our final panel discussion, which will be examining the avenues for producing new work and new writing. David Slack, Dan Herd and Steve Harper will be thrashing out the issue, and we’d be delighted to hear your thoughts too!

6pm sees our second round of rehearsed readings. In February 2012, we ran a six-week playwriting course at mac, and have selected four writers from this course to present their ideas for a one-hour stage play. Two of those writers, Liz Plumpton and Catherine Mee, will be displaying their works-in-progress tonight – come and catch these two stars on the rise!

7.30pm is Cuddles time, as Joseph Wilde’s darkly comic satire gets its second airing. Witness the two sisters’ battle for control that leads to a thrilling and horrifying conclusion. This play is set to be huge, so if you missed it yesterday make sure to catch it today while it’s still hot!

If you’re after something a bit different, come and witness the lyrical experience that is Sean Burn’s calyx. Follow the heroine as she attempts to free herself from the memory of her abduction, while at the same time trying to carve a new life for herself. This is a beautiful play that will leave you moved and impressed, and is definitely one to watch.

So if you haven’t already, come and catch us before we’re gone! It’s the perfect excuse to soak up some culture along with the sunshine!

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THEATRE AND THE PERFORMING ARTS IN 2012 AND BEYOND?

London 2012 Festival, Improbable and Curve invite you to the grand opening of the

The Devoted & Disgruntled 2012 Roadshow: 21 June & 22 June 2012

At a crucial time for theatre and the performing arts in the UK, the Devoted & Disgruntled Roadshow seeks to engage people in a nationwide conversation.  Curve takes great pleasure in inviting you to our unique theatre to kick start a ground-breaking nationwide conversation that could reshape the theatre landscape.

Devoted & Disgruntled is your chance to make theatre better. If you care about theatre, if you watch it, make it, organise it or wish it was different, you are the right person to come along.

Led by Improbable and supported by Curve, Arts Council England and Locog, the Devoted & Disgruntled 2012 Roadshow is touring the country as part of the London 2012 Festival and offers you a chance to meet others who are passionate about theatre, have the conversations you really need to have, and make things happen.

The events use Open Space technology (an effective practical method of thinking about and discussing ideas which does use a lot of post it notes but isn’t based around a board table or flipchart!) to capture the zeitgeist of the arts in 2012, and facilitate the emergence of a new era of connectivity and creativity for artists and audiences throughout the country.

Join us over the two days and let’s work together towards making theatre better and making better theatre.

Devoted & Disgruntled Leicester is a free two-day event at Curve theatre, Leicester on 21 June 2012 4pm – 10pm & 22 June 2012 10am – 6pm.

For more information and to register for the event go to Register: D&D Leicester and please forward this invitation on to anyone else you think would be interested in attending.

Devoted & Disgruntled is part of the London 2012 Festival, a spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK, from 21 June to the 9 September 2012. For more information check www.london2012.com/festival

We’re behind the scenes today with our first workshop, in association with Stan’s Café, where James Yarker will be demystifying the devising process, using his own experience to provide practical and useful advice. Come on down at 10am to try your hand at real-life devising techniques – and maybe even begin a new piece of work!

On Call and Midpoint will be networking for the final time from 12 – 2pm today, so grab them while you can if you’re interested in the working relationships that are so essential to a successful piece of theatre – from production companies and collaborative writing to funding, the On Call team is ready for your queries.

We have the second round of our hugely popular 5×5 performances beginning at 2pm today. Yesterday’s audience loved the quirky, engaging nature of the shows, and it’s definitely a great way to break out of traditional audience-performer roles. Come along and experience it for yourself – they won’t be around forever!

Make sure you’ve got your thinking caps on, because we’ll be looking at the relationship between new writing and new work in our 4pm panel discussion, in association with The Writer’s Guild. With such distinguished panellists as Fraser Grace, Rebecca Atkinson-Lord and Hanna Silva, this is shaping up to be a fantastic exploration of modern playwriting, and definitely is not one to be missed.

Our first set of rehearsed readings begins at 6pm today. As part of Talking Birds’ 20^th anniversary, Capital, Talking Birds and Writing West Midlands have hand selected eight five-minute plays that tackle the ‘high jump’. If you’re pressed for time, this is a great way to see lots of little gems by up-and-coming writers.

And last but by no means least; we have two of our commissioned plays on this evening. If you missed it yesterday, come down and see Rob Joiner’s fantastic Without A Hand to Hold, a ‘bold, lyrical and confrontational’ examination of identity and friendship get its second airing at 7.30pm. Or if you’re feeling in the mood for something darker, stick around for the long-awaited Cuddles at 9pm – this isn’t one for the kids, so it’s the perfect excuse to get out and have a night to yourselves.

So come along and revel in the delights we have to offer! And as ever, keep an eye open for tomorrow’s preview – I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

He had the right idea in Field of Dreams; building a baseball field to host a game between long-dead stars. Or something. To be honest, I can’t remember much more about it, apart from lots of whimsical gazing across the meadows. And the busloads of tourists turning up at the end. The lesson being, obviously, it’s ok to follow your dreams as long as you make a shedload of money at the end of it. And, perhaps more importantly, make people happy.

People seemed to be happy yesterday. The energy in the building was buzzing and it was fantastic to see so many people turn out for the events. I really think we’re building something special here, both in terms of nurturing writers and also celebrating what a great theatre community we have here in Birmingham. Here’s just a few bits of feedback on Twitter from yesterday:

Good first day with @capitalplays good to be out of my comfort zone, learning about stuff I don’t know about.. Well done all

— Pippa Frith (@Pippa_Frith) May 24, 2012

Fantastic morning w @capitalplays @mac_birmingham, using an on-line resource to write a collaborative play. Fully inspired!

— Elisha Owen (@ElishaOwen11) May 24, 2012

Exploring new writing again today. And what a piece! Looking forward to 2nd day of rehearsal.@capitalplays @mac_birmingham

— Ciaran Duce (@CDuce) May 24, 2012

Very friendly and passionate #theatre people here at @capitalplays#capitalfest12twitter.com/alina_stan/sta…

— Alina Loredana Stan (@alina_stan) May 24, 2012

It feels as though things are steadily growing. Word is spreading that we’re here to have a lot of fun and produce some great new work. We don’t have Kevin Costner, or James Earl Jones, or John Malkovich, but we’ve got three fantastic new plays, three full days of theatre chat and performance, and an ice-cream van right outside the door.

What more could you want?

It’s possible to do the school run get to London do two meetings and get back to London for the afternoon school run, but only if your meetings are close to Euston Station. Fortunately yesterday’s mission was to scope the back street route between Euston and St. Pancras Stations with an eye to possible future Steps action – ideal.

We launched the Festival today with a plethora of different events, a veritable smorgasbord of new writing and thinking. We kicked off at 10am with Caroline Jester’s workshop on Online Collaborative Playwriting, in which we examined the new and exciting angle the Internet can offer to the creative development of new plays. We even encouraged our newly enlightened playwrights to produce their own short plays within the workshop – so watch this space for cutting edge new works!

We’ll follow that with an On Call networking discussion in the Arena Bar from 12-2pm, supported by Midpoint. Today we’re focusing on taking new plays to the Edinburgh Festival, so if you’re interested in getting a wider audience for your work, intrigued to get a producer’s perspective, or simply fancy a chat and a drink, come along and get involved!

Today also marks the beginning of our collaboration with two Universities. Birmingham City University, in association with Th Screenwriter’s Forum, are hosting a drop-in TV drama shoot demo from 1-4pm. If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of your favourite TV shows, this is the event for you! The students will be filming a short script in a variety of different ways, giving you the chance to see the tweaks and techniques that go into producing top-quality dramas.

The University of Birmingham will also be on the scene for the launch of their 5×5 performances today. Five MPhil students have produced five short plays reflecting on society, community and current events, which will be performed from 2-3pm in five different and unique locations around the mac. This unusual experience is not one to be missed!

We’re thinking digitally in the afternoon, with a panel discussion from 4-5pm and a Digital Edge Pitch Event from 6-7pm in association with North West Playwrights. The advent of social media and digital technology has the potential to revolutionise playwriting as we know it, and these two events will examine how they can best be harnessed in two different ways. If you’re interested in the debate, come along at 4pm, or if you fancy playing the judge, come along to see some pitches at 6pm.

Perhaps the most exciting thing of all today is the début of our two newly-commissioned plays, Sean Burns’ Calyx and Rob Joiner’s Without A Hand To Hold. These plays have been hand-selected from our competition entries to provide the most enjoyable and intriguing experience possible, and the writers have been working tirelessly with our teams to produce two top-quality plays that are a definite must-see. What would be a better after-work treat than two outstanding examples of new writing? Come along to Calyx at 7.30pm, or grab something to eat first and catch Without A Hand To Hold at 9pm.

With all these exciting new events, who can believe that it’s only the first day? And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve got an equally thrilling schedule prepared for tomorrow! Stay tuned for details of more fabulous events!