The Writers' Room - Tom Morton-Smith

Tom Morton-Smith rehearses his play Oppenheimer at the RSCOppenheimer opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford in January 2015 and after critical acclaim has received a West-End transfer which opens this evening. As part of my portrait project The Writers’ Room I caught up with Tom during rehearsals in London."Fascination is my main motivation when writing. Writing a play is a great excuse to spend your time reading, researching and thinking about subjects and themes that fascinate and excite you.  Theatre breaks your heart safely. It lets you confront emotions and thoughts that you might shy away from in the real world.  People will tell you that they wanted something else from your play. They wanted it to be more about this, or have more of a focus on that. But plays written for other people are impotent. Write the plays you wish to see - your audience will find you."The photo below was featured in The Independent's feature on Tom last week.

The Writers’ Room

This project is borne out of a curiosity about where and how playwrights, screenwriters and novelists work. No matter how well known their work becomes we often know very little of the process the writer goes through to create it even though it may take them many years.

We peek behind the curtain of how and where they write whether at home, in a public space - solitary or surrounded by people.

The collection is a mixture of portraits and reportage photography.