Leicestershire writer of Open Pitch project Lucky Stars Chris Kealey share his experience of Open Pitch and welcoming creativity back into his life.

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January comes with choices. Should I finish the mince pies, raid the kids’ selection box, or have a satsuma?

It should be the fruit. It rarely is. I hope the kids don’t catch me…

Also, what choices will make 2025 better than 2024?

This month I can’t wait for two days at the Curve in Leicester with four cracking actors and the New Perspectives team as part of Open Pitch, a programme to help first-time artists have their voices heard.

I’ve been telling stories since I could con my primary school teacher. Only, growing up near Leicester, I was always nudged to put my writing into something seen as practical or useful. I pushed to become a journalist. I joined the foreign office and wrote dispatches from Afghanistan, Turkey and the UN. I wrote for government ministers, princes and politicians. I then came back to Leicester to get elected (failed), and now work for the police, telling the stories of incredible people who sign up to one of the toughest jobs there is.

But I missed something for years. There was a creative splinter I could never fully tweezer out. Until now, and it’s thanks to New Perspectives and someone special who pushed me.

My play “Lucky Stars” is about the little choices we make every day which lead us in different directions. Are they fate or destiny? Luck or design? It’s a dark comedy about a woman in a coma and the two men who love her – one’s a lottery winner, the other her husband. 

The play comes from personal experience of seeing the very best and worst of things happening in the same day. Life is cruel and hilarious. Could it be possible to find the winning ticket, be knocked into a coma, and fall in love all in one day? Of course. Let’s go.

Open Pitch has been my first-ever opportunity to develop a script with professionals. I have soaked up every second and loved it. I applied last Spring with the idea for Lucky Stars and I have had months of fantastic support from Jayne, pushing my thinking, testing my drafts, and giving me the confidence to go for it.

In November, we came together in Nottingham and workshopped the play with four gifted, East Mids actors. It was tremendous. A world in my head began to come to life, and the group reshaped and improved the story beyond measure.

The next step is two more days in Leicester for research and development, culminating in a rehearsed reading and sharing of the script. I am enormously grateful.

My career and day job to-date have taught me that writing is re-writing. What has surprised and fascinated me most about Open Pitch has been the fun I have had doing just that (daft, but true). I have found happiness in the re-writes, tickled forward by the guidance of experts.

I hope that’s good news for the future. I feel able to push on and back my ideas. I’ve opened up a new part of my life which I had previously pushed to the back of the drawer. Not anymore.

Just over a year ago, I made a choice (No, not more pilfering of my children’s chocolate stash). I chose to try and get my ideas heard. New Perspectives’ Open Pitch and the Curve’s First Fridays gave me that opportunity brilliantly in 2024.

My choice for an even better 2025 is more, please - more writing and re-writing, more ideas being heard, more work with creative, collaborative people, and more opportunities leading to new choices. I am excited about where they might lead.